


And He Won The Heart Of The Dragon

by pastelNothing



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bard!Molly, Cults, Dragon Politics are werid., Dragon!Caleb, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Political Intrigue, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-05-07 12:14:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19209232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelNothing/pseuds/pastelNothing
Summary: There were drinks, coin flowing and though the villagers were a bit leary of his horns he was doing just fine. Of course he had to open his mouth for a pretty girl.She had been perched on one of the stools sipping a drink, and Molly’s eyes easily traveled lower, appraising her, and she even winked at him. He’d saddled up to her and remembered her first question.“Have you ever traveled with knights, ser bard?”





	1. There'll Be No Compromise Again

**Author's Note:**

> Hey friends! 
> 
> This is a new venture of mine, something a little different but not quite a branch off what I usually write. But the difference is I'm going to try and finish it! (I promise I'm going to try and finish with everything else I have but I'm not feeling the others, please forgive me.) 
> 
> I gotta thank my wonderful beta who I've been working with through this with me and letting me bounce ideas and float words by. Of course I gotta thank the Widomauk server as well for being a good sounding board and letting me post snippets for them to gush and even give ideas for me. 
> 
> With a new story comes new fun and new creative ways to write not just the characters but the world. Completely homebrew with a bit of reference from real life cultures and fantasy, I like using my love of world-building for this. 
> 
> Another thing is that I'll be adding warnings for each chapter, as it is important in the case there may be a potential trigger for someone! 
> 
> Warnings:  
> Kidnapping; Cults; Themes of Starvation/Lack of Food

At least the ropes were nice, Mollymauk thought to himself as the wagon rocked along the half cobble road they had been travelling on for the last few days. They were nearing a city, he could tell. The smells and sounds of the forest give way to farmers, pig muck and horses, woodsmoke and voices that chatter on. 

Five days ago he was in a small little village with barely a name, making money telling stories and singing songs with his good friends and having a gay time. There were drinks, coin flowing and though the villagers were a bit leary of his horns he was doing just fine. Of course he had to open his mouth for a pretty girl. 

She had been perched on one of the stools sipping a drink, and Molly’s eyes easily traveled lower, appraising her, and she even winked at him. He’d saddled up to her and remembered her first question.

“Have you ever traveled with knights, ser bard?” She looked so sweet with her green eyes and that cherubic face, he couldn’t tell her the truth, could he?

“Darling, traveling with knights? I’ve done more than travel my fair lady.” He takes her hand and brings her knuckles to his lips. “I am Knight Mollymauk of House Tealeaf. My family hails from far South where the Wilds begin.” Her eyes had gone wide at that and he knew he’d hooked her, easy as stealing from the alms box. 

From there more drinks flowed, more songs were sung and Mollymauk was making plenty of money to get him across the river and perhaps close to the beaches to the East. He’d kept laying it on thick, admonishing himself and his foolish heart now at such a pretty face as he leaned back against the stiff wood. Yasha would probably be tracking him, shaking half the town down to find him, and that was a glimmer of hope compared to the odd quiet of the townsfolk transporting him. 

A horse’s whinny caught his attention but not before the beat of wings and then the raised voices. He tensed, realizing what they were about to have beset on them.

 _Dragon._

These lands were filled with them but in the intense, loud way his captors were speaking Mollymauk knew this wasn’t a kindly dragon of the woodland or protector of the city. He wishes he could get to his swords, his pack, anything that could help him right then. 

But then, something odd. It was not anger or fear. 

But prayer? 

His tail thrashed and thumped and struggling against the bonds began anew as it had the last few days of rutting around and attempting escape but wide palms gripped his shoulders. 

“Ease yourself.” 

He knew that voice. He knew that fucking voice. Back almost a week ago in that tavern, one of the stable hands held that same tone of voice when he calmed one of the horses, easing a mare spooked by the storm. Mollymauk felt useless, vicious anger because he knew a man of that size wouldn’t let Molly go without a fight he’d lose. 

“We give prayers to the red dragon so it blesses us, beseeches us and our harvest grows strong as our children.” There is murmuring agreements and Mollymauk suppresses the urge to gag. If the dragons so wanted, they could all be used as cattle and livestock. Some countries have that, Molly wants to say, to laugh but he is at their mercy, and remains silent. But the wagon moves, continues its wobbling path and the voices go calm again, returning to previous conversations. To farming and rain patterns. Molly wants to scream. 

Their transition into town is the sound of music, the scent of bread being baked and children along the side of streets, assaulting Molly’s ears with screaming and laughter. Another irritated flick of the ear though its calming. Perhaps they’ll be selling him, or there’s another bounty on his head. He can get out of those quick with a smile and some wit though he sorely wishes his pack were closer, so perhaps he didn’t feel so frail with just his hands and tail. His tail. 

It wound behind him, curling and wrapping around his wrist. The man had let him go and though he could feel the body close by Molly knew he was near so he moved in slow, swaying movements like before, giving into the rhythm of the cart. He worked carefully, letting the spade tip work into the main knot holding his wrists together and bit his lip, squeezing his eyes shut behind the blindfold. A few twists and he would be free, loosening the knot until he could catch it in his hand, keep it there for the right time. 

When the cart eased to a stop Molly could feel the quickening of his heart. Were they selling him off? He wouldn’t do well in any type of mine, unless perhaps a diamond mine. But they were chatting amiably and only a few people got off the wagon and the rocking jostled him just enough he needed to be righted. He was almost given away when someone shouted but then a growl of a dog and its whine made him relax. Just a mutt, Mollymauk, come on. Taking a slow, deep breath he relaxed, and waited for his fate. 

He never moved off that cart. 

When the movement happened he turned to hear them talking. Boring, nondescript words about work and tasks like there wasn’t a kidnapped tiefling in their wagon not ten feet away. Molly made to protest and something was stuffed in his mouth, warm and soft. Bread. He chewed, contemplated before swallowing and opening his mouth again. 

“I didn’t expect that, honestly, but if the bread here is good I don’t mind being sold.” 

Then he hears laughter, and bite of bread given is followed by a savory meat in sauce that he licks up eagerly. He realizes how hungry he is by the need for more. After several bites of food he’s given water, fresh and cold that almost burns his parched mouth and he leans forward like a suckling calf till he falls forward into the chest of that solid man. It would almost be romantic if he wasn’t their captive. 

“We aren’t going to sell a knight,” the stable hands voice is chipper as the cart begins to move and Mollymauk wants to swear, bang his horns into the broad shoulder but he’s tired. He wants more water. “We’re almost at the mountain, and the altar, where we will take you and lay you for the dragon.” 

Molly snaps before he can hold his tongue. 

“Do you really think a single knight will be enough to defeat a dragon? A young dragon perhaps, but not--” The next biting words are muffled with a palm over his mouth and he wants to hiss, bite and lick at the hand. It smells like horses, like ale and the delicious soft bread. 

“You aren’t going to fight him, no. The red dragon likes knights. Like a cat and rat.” The pleased tone washes over Mollymauk like ice. He’s not to be used as a pawn in some fight, but an offering instead. A snack for this dragon. Rage boils over. 

“I will not be left like some slab of meat for a monster, you will unhand me at once!” 

Molly uses the surprise to pull apart his wrists, using both of his hands to push the man away and make a jump for the open end of the wagon, until his head smacks into something and with a horrifying realization and the pain blossoming at the top of his head, he realizes: he’d forgotten to remove his blindfold. This time he struggles, struggles for all he has as the stable hand grabs him and hauls Molly back onto his rump. He starts to claw, reaching to grab anything he can muster before something takes a hold of him.. It’s disorienting, disgusting and Molly feels sick to his stomach as magic seals around him, holding him in place. 

Laughter grates on his nerves making his teeth clench as someone to his right, further towards the front of the wagon enjoys his frustration, his anger. Hands release him but draw his arms back, bringing the soft rope tighter and he loses count of the winding rope or the number of knots tied around him. Defeat slumps his shoulders, tears threatening to dampen the cloth against his eye. 

“It will be over soon, if you’re worried.” The voice is feminine, and a sickening realization brings him back almost a week ago, to a woman with ample breasts and more money than necessary in a town with barely a name. 

For a while the conversation carries on as normal while the wagon takes them further from the city. Molly takes a deep breath and brings his knees up to his chest. Not the most comfortable but he is tired, sleep easily taking him.

When they woke him it was cold - darkness still encompassed his gaze and no pinpricks of light broke through his blindfold so it must be night. When hands grab at him he struggles, trying to push against the bonds but they’re far too strong. The smell of incense is offensive even if the heady scent gives him hope. _If I die tonight,_ Molly muses as he ignores the excited chattering around him, _at least I die pretty._ Though as he tossed his head there was a lack of jingling from his horns and his feet felt cold. Those bastards stole his jewelry, his boots and most likely everything on him that wasn’t directly attached or in his skin. Anger boiled in the darkness around him. 

It's quiet. Molly supposes it's a good thing there's no chanting or singing or anything else weird. He tries to memorize how many steps he's taken, how many times he's tried making notes or ways to remember it fizzles out and desperation makes him sag and wither on the spot. 

Molly curls his toes, dirt and stones underfoot as they jostle and push him. When he's put up against a stone the conversations slow and they peel away. Silence has always been jarring to Mollymauk and this doubly so. He wants to scream, to run, to do anything, but the fear and his own weakness root him there. As they begin their prayer, Molly attempts to focus his mind and think of the Moonweaver.

“We begin tonight to bring a sacrifice to the red dragon that protects us all, who gives us our land and lets us live free. Because of he, we are able to provide. So we provide what we will.” 

Murmurs of agreement grow louder, people humming, and Molly feels another shiver down his back. He can hear the sound, sharpening metal and jangling of chains. 

“We leave this one here, to hope the growing season continues unimpeded and we can survive till winter.” When Molly feels the chains drape over his back he screams and is quickly gagged, biting down and struggling. Many hands are on him, holding him down as they tighten his restraints and leave him laying there. He feels helpless, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. Around him conversations continue, laughter and banter and Molly curls into himself on whatever he’s laid upon, fatigue catching up and sleep overtaking him. 

Wolves are what wake Mollymauk, fear and the ache of hunger that beset the terror icing his veins. His toes curl, trying to tense where he might be and rolling to his side. Then he’s falling, a shout falling from his lips. The gag sticks to them, to his dry tongue and the wicked moisture. Molly would do a lot for a drink of water, or ale, anything that would remove the taste of old sweat and cotton linen. He thinks of the drinks he had with Yasha before all of this went down, the shitty ale that would taste like heaven on earth. He takes a shuddering breath as he attempts to sit up. Everything aches, the spin of his head as he finally rights himself against something cold, stone under his fingers.  
A horrified but understandable realization was that they had him on an altar. 

The howling grows louder, Molly having to fight all his fear to not freeze, shifting and pressing his face against the stone. As he moves, pushing his cheek to the rough cold. If he survives he’ll deal with the raw patches on his face, trying to find a corner that can hook onto the blindfold. It takes several tries and the beginning warm patch against his cheek does not worry, finally able to slip the blindfold crooked enough it falls over his eyes, down his nose. 

Sunlight burns his eyes, bright and almost cheerful in spite of Molly and he blinks several times, trying to get his bearings so he could possibly make an escape. The iron chains are taught around him, another ache across his whole body. Several moments pass with working attempts to get over his partial blindness, scanning the area as he tries working the gag out of his mouth but that is tied too tight, making him groan. His ears perk to the left of him and he freezes, rigid as slowly he brings it into view. 

The wolves, a trio, at the edge of the clearing. Two pace, walking along the edge of the brush as if waiting for a cue from the one that has its eyes trained on him. Everything slows down, Molly’s prayers to the Moonweaver growing in his head as he hopes someone, something, saves him. But they step forward, Molly only having enough time to make an attempt to stand before they’re on him. 

A flash makes him reel and duck, fire spiraling from his right and he presses into the ground barely quick enough to tuck his tail away from the heat. The wolves yowl and recoil, snarling at the foe before another flash and Molly looks toward the source but the light of the fire is too much for his unused sight, tucking his head under his arm. In his fear, Molly thinks this would be the dragon, saving his meal from an easier fate before eating him. He wonders if it will hurt, and hopes it will be quick. But the snarling wolves retreat into the forest with their yowls and tails tucked between their legs and silence befalls the forest again. 

Molly doesn’t move for a long time, not even realizing something was talking to him. A hand on his shoulder makes him recoil, fearing those cultists but it pulls away just as quick. 

“What have they done to you...” 

The words catch him and finally Mollymauk looks up. His sight clears better with the shade provided by the form crouching above him, a figure with a long coat, hair that flutters in the breeze. If Molly could take a proper breath he might be breathless but there’s pain in his chest, through his back by the tight chains and the fear that still seizes him. Things begin to fade, feel fuzzy as his vision dims but he can feel the hands on him again; they’re softer than the ones that left him here to die. Barely cognizant, the chains falling away feel more like an embrace finally being loosened and then the gag being pulled away. Molly’s brought to his knees and finally he can see the face of his savior. 

Not quite dirty, with a days worth of ginger stubble and piercing blue eyes that feel almost magical. When Molly realizes that he’d been staring, he gives a weak smile and the person smiles back. There’s a thumping, sappy warmth that spreads through Molly’s chest and he blinks, trying to ignore those feelings and focus on the fact the man’s mouth is moving, words are coming out.

“Can you tell me your name, stranger?” The man is asking him, probably for the third time since they’ve been sheltering and untying him. Molly licks his dry lips and makes a motion for liquid, for water. A water flask is offered and quickly drained, fresh water finally touching Molly’s lips after several long days of starvation only pulled away before the tiefling chokes. 

“Mollymauk. Molly to my friends but you, my savior, can call me anything you want.” 

The laughter from the other makes Molly’s chest tingle, face warm. 

“Well Mollymauk, I am,” they pause for a moment before pushing some dirty hair from Molly’s face. The hand is so warm he leans into it so easily. “Widogast. Proprietor of the land, so you shall come with me.” 

It wasn’t like Molly was going to protest at this point. 


	2. And There Are Depths Beyond Compare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You need to put a stop to this, to these cultists, Caleb,” Nott says as she looks over the map, reaching to take the small model of a red dragon, pulling it away from the pillars of a black dragon. He smiles at that, shutting his book and steepling his fingers. Beau watches the goblin move players on the map, dragons and little groupings of soldiers pushed around the table like a chessboard. 
> 
> “How would you get rid of mice in the cupboards, when you can not reveal you are a cat."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again readers! 
> 
> Many thanks to my reader and beta for their kindness and pushing me to write more of this lovely fic.
> 
> This and the next chapter are definitely going to be more of expansion and world building with sprinkles of lore and political intrigue. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> No real warnings in this chapter.

Dew collects on the leaves of the little fern huddled at the corner of Caleb’s window and he watches in silence as the first drop began to roll from the base of the fern, down the leaf. It draws in smaller droplets of dew, growing fatter and catching the colors of the sunrise. As Caleb sits up to finally begin his morning, the droplet trembles and falls from the leaf into the pot held haphazardly by a small cracked pot. Drawing the curtains farther apart he looks down over the courtyard. Quick bodies move into the stables, most likely milking the cows and tending to the pigs just coming to lay in their sty.

Across the courtyard he can see the smoke from the blacksmith and another pillar of pale smoke from the bakery and the kitchen. Caleb’s stomach grumbles, clicking elongated nails along the stone before frowning at his hand as it shifts back. He leaves the window open as he dresses in more casual clothes, tying the leather across his hips and barely passing a mirror until he’s at the door, checking his reflection. The mystic’s voice mumbles in his head, laughing at his lack of shaving skills and his growing hair but he was never a fan of the prim appearance, even under the King’s tutelage. His head turns at laughter from outside, loud and familiar, and Caleb picks up the pace, hoping to have one of the fresh buns before his company can take the first batch before him.

The courtyard is abuzz with activities, the morning unfolding before the man as he slips between bodies and through the castle. Caleb feels the presence before she speaks to him, reaching out and taking the offered morning bun with a murmur of thanks. He bites in, savoring the light bread and the meat filling, savory and spicy on his tongue.

"We had some partiers in the woods but they've left early this morning, back the way they came. Most likely the ones from before." The voice sounds disdainful and Caleb cannot help but agree, frowning at his memory of the cultists. He shrugs the memory away and focuses on watching the sheep bleat wildly, squirming from the grip of their herder guiding them into stalls for sheering.

Caleb looks down to his attendant and pats her head twice.

"I may have to put more protection into the forest but I will not risk our townsfolk," he suppresses a yawn with the back of his hand. As he turns back to go inside she follows and passes him another bun and Caleb smiles then. "Did you have to fight Beauregard for these?"

Laughter from the goblin cackles brightly and she waves her taloned hands.

"I didn't fight as much as play the game better. She bet me I couldn't shoot an apple from across the courtyard. She learned."

Caleb chuckles and takes his time on the steps, letting the goblin lead. She continues on her talks, the village happenings and the birth of a new foal from the horse they had fostered the winter before.

"They've asked if you would like her when she is weaned, Caleb. We would do well for another horse, a worker for the fields to the East."

He mulls it over as they reach the Great Hall and pass several people hoisting a new painting on the wall. Caleb was happy for the new art, fresh things in the stuffy old castle as they passed, moved to his study. It was relaxing, silent save for the soft ticking of a clock at his desk. Books stacked on their shelves, his tables and left open at his workstation. A map of the country lay out on the central table, wide and expanding beyond his grasping reaches. He could see Trent’s territory, a hatched line of the border as well as the other dragon royalty scattered to the winds. Then he sighs, looking to Nott who offers another morning bun but he waves it away.

“Do you have anything of purpose that needs to be brought up, Nott?”

The goblin goes over the local reports, pressing matters the townsfolk have come to bring the noble to attention. Conversations of the coming festival, matters of the summer crops to be sewn and what to allow, all trivial matters that seemed to bore the prince as he idled his index finger along the corner of a page. Caleb’s eyes unfocus and shakes his head.

“I think you can most likely find answers with the agriculture specialists and most likely the mayor.” He watches as Nott’s ears flicker and pin back slightly.

“Of course, Caleb.”

Her tone makes him sigh and he reaches over to pat her head again. Caleb feels her lean into the touch, ears flicking against his wrist before pinning behind her head and he runs careful fingers through the strands.

“We will find our answers in time, lieber. Fret not but what you have that concerns us.” He pulls away and Nott gives him a broken toothed smile and he smiles back. Then she rests a tome on his desk, earthen with a golden spine but the cover makes the smile fade by small increments.

“Trent should be tired of this game, shouldn’t he?” He muses and he hears Nott repeat the same action.

“We must do what we have to, for our King.”

Caleb wishes he could protest more, but he asks her for the ledgers and begins to soak his quill.

The morning passes quickly then, working in the book and taking questions that come from those asking of him. Many townsfolk passing along requests that are passed on to him, simple and mundane, infinitely easier than what is asked of him on the parchment pressed into the bindings. Just as the sun reaches its highest point in the sky Caleb pushes from his desk, surprising the goblin at his side and she gives him a quizzical look.

“I am going to step out, if only for a moment.” He moves to the rack of coats and draws one of his traveling cloaks from it, wrapping it around him as it sits like a second skin. Nott is calling after him, saying something about their mystic but he waves it off with an answer of ‘later,’ before he is out the door.

His forest has always felt like home to him - earth beneath his feet and the open sky above. It was hard to not simply take to the sky as soon as he was out of the boundaries of his keep but he must remain true to his secrecy, to the word of his King. Caleb chewed his lip and shook the memories from his mind lest he anger himself more. The paths he took were known mostly to those closest to him and Caleb knew if Nott wanted to follow she easily could track him, but when he looked behind him, focusing and allowing his senses to take in he saw no hide nor hair of the goblin, and a breath of relief filled him.

Spring winds lifted his spirits, rousing the ferns and branches of trees as he walked through the forest. Young hares skittered from his path and he was happy to spot a doe and her fawns grazing in one of the clearings. Caleb could let his troubles drift away more if he had the forethought to bring a book but his haste was his biggest regret. He found the path leading to one of his favorite spots, sidestepping some skunk weed on the way when he heard a not too familiar noise, stopping to pinpoint where it was coming from.

Growling, hunger and posturing. Wolves, to the South of his position. Caleb thought to turn back and alert the hunters but something felt off. They did not hunt so early in the morning, he knew his wolves. A stripe of fear licked up his spine when Nott’s words from earlier came to mind; the cultists were practicing in the forest again. Pulling open the waist of his coat and searching for one of the scales within his coat Caleb focuses, quickening his pace and breaking through the treeline.

Caleb was running into the scene, shouting the spell, moving too quickly to think as the wolves lunged and the fire erupted from his palm and across in a line. Two of the wolves were burned, sent yowling back into the forest and Caleb wiped his hand free of soot, the scorching flames died down, leaving the forest silent. Before him a tiefling, face rubbed raw and chains woven over him like a vice. Anger flared and he could feel his grip on his old scale cracking, shattering in his grasp. Moving to the form prone on the ground he feared they were dead before he saw breathing and a flash of warmth over him. Alive. Good.

“What have they done to you...”

Then the tiefling looked up, Caleb’s breath catching for only a moment. They were beautiful, soft lavender skin and tattoos across their cheek and down their neck disappearing under clothes and chains. It took no effort and a quick spell to make them fall away and the tiefling relaxed limp, babbling almost as he brings them to their feet. He offers the waterskin he’d tied to his belt and watches them guzzle it, the spade tipped tail happy to curl and stretch and eventually wrap around its owners waist.

Caleb asks their name and when they talk there is the smallest flash of fang and a flicker of amusement buzzes at the back of his mind.

“Mollymauk. Molly to my friends but you, my savior, can call me anything you want.” This Mollymauk says and Caleb hears them ask for his and he sputters out, _Widogast_ like he is something less important, but the tiefling seems to take the answer.

Neither does Mollymauk object to being taken back to the keep, but before they move to leave Caleb takes a wire from his coat, wrapping it over his fingers and sending a message to Nott that he would be bringing a guest, and they would need medical assessment. Putting the wire into one of his pockets, Caleb looks over to Mollymauk who almost looks dozing; Chewing his lip, he wraps an arm around them and hefts them up. They weigh almost nothing, light and quick to wrap arms around him.

“I have you,” Caleb says, leaning forward to pick up Mollymauk’s legs and bring the weak tiefling to his chest. They make a little grumbling noise and curl into Caleb, silent then save for trembling breathing that breaks the man’s heart.

At the mouth of the forest Nott is there with two nurses and a stretcher waiting though Caleb does not let them take the tiefling, claiming a fear of hypothermia. The nurses do not protest and they walk him to the infirmary. Nott asks question after question, wanting to know what had happened, where he found the tiefling who begins to grumble again at her loudness. Finally able to lay Mollymauk on the bed, he stands by until one of the nurses quirks a brow at him.

“We will let you know when they are stable, Lord Widogast,” the elf says and Caleb is swayed as Nott tugs on his shirt.

“Beauregard has asked to see you.”

Caleb’s mouth comes to a thin line but he lets Nott push him back toward his study though he can feel his urge to sequester himself, ignore the mystic. She’s upon him before he can peel off from the goblin with one arm around his neck and the other at his arm.

“Caleb~” She sounds tense and Caleb can only push his elbow at her side to get the monk to release him.

“Beauregard.” Caleb finally brings his attention to the monk before him who looks pleased with herself as ever, giving a lousy half bow to him.

“I heard you brought in another stranger from the woods,” she looks amused though Caleb can see her eyes, the seriousness behind them as they start walking together. The detour is easy to make, breaking off for one of the studies within the many halls and rooms in the castle. Caleb can feel Nott at his leg, almost reaching to hold a hand out to her, but he can already feel her presence, her nervousness.

“They were about to be eaten by wolves,” he says calmly as they hook a left down one of the lesser used halls. Beauregard’s noncommittal noise is dismissed by Caleb as he, the mystic and the goblin make their way toward the end of the hall but stop short. He brings his hand to the side of a fine painting of a summer festival, painted decades ago by an elf long since dead and flips a small switch. The wall clicks and separates from the main apparatus, opening to reveal the doorway. Caleb lets Nott and Beau in first before following and closing the door behind him.

The private war room is less decorated but just as ornate, sparse of paintings but filled with maps, books and notes that Caleb has taken over the last decade in his rule. Caleb watches Beau take her usual place, sitting with her legs over the arm of one of the wing back chairs and Nott taking up her perch at one end of the wide table. A map of the country sits before them, marked and hatched with colored lines, pillars of makeshift castles and battlements. Forts that draw battle lines and no-mans land along the same planes of the new freedoms of the North and East. Caleb can feel himself relax here, as morbid as the thought is.

“So what’s with the present this time? They don’t usually send tieflings. Lots of knights and paladins of various amounts of drunk,” Beauregard doesn’t look his way as she speaks but Caleb knows it’s because she’s gathering her thoughts. He sighs.

“It seems they starved this one, made them weak and easy enough for the wolves to pick off. They seem to be getting desperate, as the Spring brought not enough rains and they worry for the summer heat.” He reached for a book recording the weather and thumbed over weathered pages that had been inked over the weekend before. Nott watched him, her tail curling and relaxing much like a cat’s and it comforted him in a way. He missed his cat.

“You need to put a stop to this, to these cultists, Caleb,” Nott says as she looks over the map, reaching to take the small model of a red dragon, pulling it away from the pillars of a black dragon. He smiles at that, shutting his book and steepling his fingers. Beau watches the goblin move players on the map, dragons and little groupings of soldiers pushed around the table like a chessboard.

“How would you get rid of mice in the cupboards, when you can not reveal you are a cat,” Caleb muses as Beau reaches for the copper dragon and the white dragon and puts them at opposite ends of the map.

 

Caleb stands and makes his way to that table, touching over the varnished wood and leather map marked with use and flecks of old blood. History written into the veins of ink and illustrated terrain. He reaches over and plays with the troops, pushing one forward and Nott grins as she moves her own troop, and a new game begins.

“Patrolling the area might not work, since the cult might think the sacrifices are working. At least the last few have been able to recover and move on,” Beau watches as one of the knight pieces takes one of Caleb’s rooks. The goblin groans, face in her hands a Caleb swoops and uses a bishop to take the queen, a small silver dragon with a bow around its neck.

“We should try to stop strangers from coming into the forest, maybe some signs or rumors--”

“Rumors propagate explorers trying to solve the mystery or claim treasure,” Caleb cuts in before Beau can continue. He looks at the layout of the board and pushes the red dragon forward, war of the black dragon that stands before it. Their game continues for several more minutes before its the two dragons facing off in a stalemate, several spaces between them though no lines cross the path. Caleb does not share his frustration, biting his lip until a crackle of magic come across the back of his mind and a soft, familiar voice reaches him.

“The tiefling is awake, my lord.”

Standing straight and raising a hand to stop the banter between Nott and Beau Caleb closes his eyes to listen to the rest of the message. The nursemaid’s voice is honeyed, annoyed and amused.

“He is hungry, and requesting water and well,” there is a laugh. “The handsome man who saved him. Please return to the infirmary.”

The message ended, Caleb opens his eyes golden bright that turn back to blue.

“I must go, but continue to think on these things for me.” Caleb moves quickly, grabbing up a book from his desk and moving around the table to Nott. He leans down to kiss her brow before he is gone, out the secret door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments if you liked this fic and want to read more!
> 
> Brownie points for those who tell me the song I used in this chapter.


	3. Turn Your Head Toward The Storm That's Surely Coming Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Of course, you’re my savior. You’re Widogast.” 
> 
> “Do you know why you’re here?” Caleb relaxes though he wishes he had brought a journal or something to write with, though it would be just as easy to write it all down at the end of the evening like always. 
> 
> “You’re either my savior, or the dragon I was to be sacrificed to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! That time of the week, isn'it it? Another week, another update! This time full of lore, a bit of foreshadowing, and maybe even some moving of the plot! 
> 
> As always thank you to my beta and my reader that everything works out and looks good. 
> 
> No warnings in this, though if you feel like you need something, please don't hesitate!

The infirmary is laid out with several cots on either side of the room and two stations for the healers to mix elixirs, gather ingredients and tend to the sick and those in need. Caleb greets the elven woman who had messaged him, nodding and letting her guide him to the bed where this Mollymauk lay. They weren’t laying now however, sitting up and looking around the room in an expression between amusement and worry. Caleb cleared his throat and the tiefling looked his way, face brought into a bright smile. They had bandages over Mollymauk’s cheek and across their neck but Caleb couldn’t see much more from the clothes they’d given him to keep warm. 

“Hello Mollymauk, do you remember me?” He moves closer when the nurse steps away to the tieflings other side and takes up one of their wrists, taking two fingers to Molly’s pulse. They don’t seem phased and Caleb feels a little more relief wash over him, taking one of the chairs beside the bed. 

“Of course, you’re my savior. You’re…” Mollymauk blinks and screws their face and Caleb almost finds this charming with how they scrunch their nose. “You’re Widogast.” 

“That is me, ja,” Caleb’s accent plays up at the response and Molly blinks at him, an owilsh gesture that has warmth flooding his cheeks. He banishes the idea from his mind and continues on. 

“Do you know why you’re here?” As Caleb relaxes he finds that he wishes he had brought a journal or something to write with, though it would be just as easy to write it all down at the end of the evening like always. 

“You’re either my savior, or the dragon I was to be sacrificed to.” 

Caleb chokes on the breath he was taking, covering his mouth and the nurse is tutting, moving from the bedside only to come back with two glasses of water. She makes Mollymauk take some medication and gives both the tiefling and himself a glass of water which the Caleb eagerly takes, downing the glass to alleviate his coughing. 

Setting the glass down Caleb blinks a few times to clear the tears from his eyes and look at Mollymauk in a better, clearer light. The mid morning sun has weaved through the windows and cast its light through the curtains and into the infirmary. Caleb can see the depth of colors in the tieflings hair - shades of ebony thickened with the warm eggplant colors but far more vibrant - and it reminds the wizard of an inkwell. Molly’s eyes might be off-putting to some, with a vibrant red sclera and no visible pupil, but as he watches them he can almost see where they’re looking. They seem to now be looking right at him.

“I didn’t think being sacrificed to a dragon would be such a big deal. I must be lucky, no?” There's mirth in their voice but Caleb can see the wibble of the bottom lip and his anger bubbles. Small, but growing again. 

“It is a,” Caleb can feel a headache behind his eyes, applying pressure at his brow as he sweeps his thumb between his eyes. “Complicated issue, to say the least. Are you familiar with the Dwendali and its dragons?” When Molly nods Caleb continues. 

“Dwendali’s dragon families are far and wide, gathering followings, worshippers and at their worst, those who revere them so much they can easily be called a cult.” Caleb bites his lip then, looking from the tiefling’s face and their rapt attention on him. Shyness creeps up, bitter and old. “They see the dragons as something to appease lest their crops and lives fail. Some dragons see to it to deserve that title. Rulers.” His fist clench in his lap and he almost jumps as Molly’s spade tip flicks just against his knee. 

“I’ve heard of stories, some of them not so fond of the dragons. If what you’re saying is true,” Mollymauk tilts their head as their tail curls closer to their body. “Does that mean the black dragon is that vicious?” 

Caleb wishes he could have just left then but he is rooted to the spot, forced to nod and try to keep his breathing even. He could do this. 

“Ja, that is true. The black dragon he, he is ferocious. Terrible.” At many things, his mind wants to add. “The stories of him happy to burn away anything in his way is, unfortunate and true.” 

Mollymauk’s face made a change that broke his heart. From the wonder, to anger and fear. With a bit of effort they bring their knees up to their chest even as the nurse on hand gently reprimands the tiefling but the abashment goes ignored. 

“That’s... really fucking scary.” Molly closes his eyes and Caleb looks away, opening his hand and frowning at the deep crescent marks in his palm. Caleb watches the healer move from Molly’s bedside and back to her station, checking over a few papers and beginning to measure ingredients. Looking back to the tiefling they hae their eyes at the ceiling. 

“What are you going to do with me now?” 

Caleb blinks though they have yet to move. 

“What do you mean?” 

Molly chuckles at that but it's another sound without happiness. Caleb finds himself hating that. 

“You’re some - some lord, some noble and you’ve got a wild tiefling left in your lands. I’m surprised you didn’t leave me, honestly.” They chuckle again and Caleb clenches his fist again. 

“You seem to have a twisted idea of who I am or you know me not at all,” Caleb’s tone is clipped and he stands, indignant even as Mollymauk turns toward him. “I saved you because you are worthy of being saved, like all life innocent and those taken against their will.” He almost tastes the smoke billowing in his chest and instead turns from the tiefling on the bed. 

“If you are so wanting to leave, you are more than welcome to. But, if you need, there are always jobs within the keep that you are welcome to take.” Caleb looks halfway over his shoulder and there’s almost something playful in what he can see of Molly. “That is, if you are up for something more than mucking stalls or singing others woes away in taverns.” 

Caleb leaves the tiefling there to rejoin his mystic and advisor, leaving Molly in the hands of the healer. He’ll send her a message or pass on a note when he has the moment, but now he needs to rid himself of this headache and the smoke he exhales as he walks back toward the war room. 

===

Molly continues to lay in the bed for another long hour until the healer rouses him to eat. She’s a sweet elf he finds, appealing in the way a mother or a confident healer is to an ailing, injured man. He wants to thank her but he’s terrified she’d laugh at him like a crow laughs at a cat after it climbs out of a basin of water. Instead Molly rolls his head slowly, feeling out his limbs. Everything aches, though he expected as much. The bruises have begun to fade but it was just the magic and the herbs pouring through him. Widogast’s words played through his mind and he kept picking and pulling at those and trying to ignore the way it kept going from words to the stubble, the strong chin and the kind eyes. He must still be tired. 

“You should eat your food,” a voice hums and Molly jumps, quickly looking over to see the healer watching him from her position. Her mention of food draws him to where her gaze lands and he sees the bowl of stew and slices of thick bread laid out next to a new glass of water. 

“Oh. Thank you.” 

She seems to hum at that but regard him no more, continuing to measure ingredients and take her notes. Molly settles into a better position, sitting up and crossing his legs to bring the bowl into the space between them. The stew is thick, hunks of meat with the gravy spiced and filled with vegetables. Molly hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he was already done with half the bowl and two slices of bread by the time the nurse had returned to urge him to drink water and not choke on his food. It was a well natured gesture even though Molly felt embarrassment warm his cheeks. The water was cold and refreshing to his parched tongue and it was gone just as quick as the food. 

Once it was gone he sheepishly asked for more water and she obliged and paused in her work, bringing the pitcher of water and pouring it full. Molly took the time to sip it now even with how thirsty he was and she sat there beside his bed, resting the pitcher next to the glass. 

“I am glad you are doing better, even if Lord Widogast is feeling...prickly,” the healer seems amused by her words as she smiles into her knitting work. Molly watches her hands, once long elegant fingers knobbed by work and calluses. He wonders if she was a mother, no ring on her finger but a life of hard work painted in the scars and rough skin. The needles work themselves against the wool and pull the fibers together into a woven thing made soft and Molly denies himself the want to touch it, licking his lips and relaxing back into the bed now alone. Sleep wants to take him but he fights it, stretching as the nurse continues her work. 

“Lord Wigoast is a prat, but he’s handsome.” Molly says before covering his mouth in a yawn. He likes the laugh she makes then, bedding down on his pillows and watching her. 

“If you are wanting to stay,” she starts and pausing her knitting, “get yourself some more sleep, and then we can speak.” 

Molly doesn’t seem to fight this, letting sleep take him. 

====

In the next few days Mollymauk slept and ate as he gathered his strength. He was happy whenever Caleb visited him though the man seemed caged, reserved and almost quiet. But he was the lord of the castle as the nurses put it. Molly’s questions were always answered plainly and easily though not a soul would answer if he was single. Pity. 

This morning Mollymauk would wake to find a note from the lord that had been delivered as he was napping through breakfast that the man would like to see him in his study if he were able. It wouldn’t be all that hard although finding it in the castle might pose a challenge. He ate, looking over the note and letting his eyes trace over the dark ink and even script as he chewed on the fat of the roast duck. The grease smeared on his lips, a quiet imagination playing in the tiefling’s mind at the idea of how Lord Widogast’s lips would feel against his. 

Anora gave him a fresh change of clothes, a little loose across his hips but they were a loan, a kindness to which he thanked her much and tied a cinch with a thick leather belt against his waist. The dusty mirror in one corner of the infirmary betrayed him, and Molly might have wished he didn’t have to see his new scar,s but that would happen, as accidents always do. New scars, different stories to tell and more than enough ideas to cover with ink and gem dust. Fingering through his hair, his brow furrows and he takes a small leather tie, putting his hair up and attempts to be a little more put together. 

Being lead through the castle Mollymauk catches the paintings, the fine stone and well worn rugs in a silence punctuated of a working order and a place alive with people. He can hear talking - laughing - and the sound of someone singing. There’s no music but Mollymauk feels himself smile and words from an old friend as he learned to play his first instrument. A song does not need more than the music of the heart and the world around you to be sung. He begins to hum then, finding an easy tune between the open windows filled with birdsong and those working outside chopping wood. 

Traversing up a flight of stairs the first window he can get to Molly finally sees the true outside world he is surrounded by. Limbs of trees obscure his vision but through them the rest of the courtyard is visible. Several people mill about, one with a bundle in their arms and a tall elven man holds a rifle to his chest with a human, mace at the side; they’re smiling, chatting and ducking under an archway and out of sight. When Anora calls his name he follows, tail flicking happily and picking up his step to fall in line with her. 

“How big is the castle?” 

“It is big enough,” she hums and regards him with a look Molly has become familiar with, shifting to steer his glance somewhere else. The rooms here are closed off, quieter than the ground floor and he finds himself wanting to peek inside and let his curiosity take him but refrains only for Anora watching him. 

“We are here, Mollymauk.” Anora’s voice turns his thoughts and the woman is standing at one of the doors, watching with amusement across her features he wished he could find the source of. Instead he thanked her and bowed his head before opening the door and stepping inside. 

The study was laid out closer to a library with shelves along nearly every wall from the ceiling to the floor. Tomes of every size and shape filled each shelf and as Molly looked close enough a few were printed in elvish, dwarvish and even the rare written gnomish book amongst the stacks. He came deeper and turned to find Anora smiling as she shut the door behind her, leaving him in the room alone. 

Until he heard a voice. 

“It would do well to perhaps take a moment for a break, to organize ourselves for another talk.” The voice was Caleb but it sounded more clipped and formal. “Until we meet again, Astrid, Eodwulf.” 

Mollymauk turned to the other side of a shelf to find the study opening up with a proper table, and books upon it. Caleb sat at a table with a wide mirror before him with the reflective side facing him. Caught in such a moment the lord looked flushed, twisting the mirror to face toward his lap as he stood. 

“I am glad to see you have made it to the study, though I am also glad Anora walked you here. You look,” Caleb’s eyes linger on Molly for less than he’d like but something told him the gaze might have been appraising. “Better, than when I found you. It is good, really.” He moves and takes a different seat than the one previously and Caleb follows, settling across from the auburn haired man, settling and tucking his bare feet under the hair to sit and warm them. Molly can see Caleb looks tense but he seems relaxed, sighing and looking up to him. 

“I asked you here to offer a place here, if you would choose it. There are many jobs, many offerings that the town and the castle itself offers in ways of work,” Caleb keeps talking but Molly is distracted between the soft curl of the human’s lips and his crystalline eyes. The lord of the keep has freckles that look as if paint had been lightly splattered across the bridge of his nose and over his cheeks and a fine scar at the corner of one eye. Molly wonders if it bothers him, pulls the skin of his eye tighter when he closes it. As Molly’s mind wanders he also notices that there, at the corner of the study a window creaks open silently and a goblin in tattered robes climbs in, trying to tuck against the wall. 

Mollymauk might call her hidden if he hadn’t made eye contact with her and watched her bright cat eyes widen in horror as she was caught in the act. Her eyes go wide, comical and catlike and the wide ears flick up to attention as the whip thin tail lashes and she screeches. 

“Caleb!” 

The man’s shoulders scrunch up and he turns to see the goblin but instead of the usual reception toward a goblin Caleb simply sighs and rolls his shoulders. He raises no hand nor angles magic toward her and she moves forward and to his side. Odd.

“I will not ask why you decided to sneak in through the window but, come Nott, sit.”

Nott - her name is Nott, Mollymauk - takes a seat at the table closer to Caleb and watching Molly with wide, curious eyes. 

“Anyway, if,” Caleb turns back to the tiefling whose tail is curling, swishing side to side in curious order and again he is reminded of Frumpkin and his arms cross at the front of his body. 

“If you wish to have a job in the Keep or in town there are options. I can also find a way for you to make your way anywhere in the world.” He sits back in his seat and watches Molly who finally tears their gaze from Nott and looks to him. Caleb’s eyes trail, lingering on the lavender skin and the fine tattoos that dance along the tiefling’s arm. The snake catches the wizards attention and he almost sees it wink as the hand holds Molly’s chin. 

“I’m unsure how you’ll use a bard, but I’m happy to offer my services.” This time it is the tiefling who winks and Caleb withholds some sound that Molly almost wants to force him to make as the human stands and looks to Nott who scrambles from her seat. 

“Good. I shall call upon some contacts. In the morning, you will be asked to meet Beauregard in the courtyard and she will take you to your job.” Caleb is all business once again and Molly deflates, looking away and to one of the windows. “You are free to do as you please as long as you are not causing trouble. I must attend to some things but Nott here has volunteered herself to show you around and take you into town if you need. I can sponsor some clothing if you need.” From a pocket within the coat Caleb produces a pouch and drops on to the table as he weeps toward the doorway. 

There is nothing then as the door slips closed leaving Molly with the goblin Nott who just stares ahead almost longingly. Mollymauk can not help his snickering giggle and the goblin flips him off. 

“C’mon, let me show you around at least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now wasn't that exciting! I hope everyone enjoyed reading! 
> 
> As always, please leave a comment or kudos!   
> If you want a little challenge, tell me what you're excited to see in the village that Caleb helps run. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!!


	4. The Harder The Rain, Honey, The Sweeter The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aelsein sits cradled by the forest, only bisected by the roads that lead through and weave the city into neighborhoods. Farms encircle the southern roads that Molly and Nott come down into - the dirt roads breaking up with stone and grass as they make their way in. Few pay attention though some wave at Nott who just nods. There are more eyes on Molly, curious and watching so but he does much the same, gawking and watching the scenery as the farms give away into the city proper. 
> 
> “Where do you want to go first?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there friends! I hope you're doing alright! I've been busy as I gear up and get ready to go to Gencon and some plans that are coming in the real life, so I apologise if a chapter is late or a little slow.
> 
> We hit 500 views, how awesome is that! We're also deceptively close to 100 kudos which i think is super awesome. 
> 
> I wanna thank my beta who's also helped me guide the path on how the fic is going to develop and calming my anxiety brain. And a thank-you to my reader and of course all of you who are down to listen to my weird writing. 
> 
> Warnings:  
> No warnings within this chapter!

“And this is going to be your room.” 

Walking through WIdogast’s castle, Mollymauk tried to remember as many of the routes as he could; he may have Nott draw him a picture later. Three floors, all filled with different rooms and uses that the tiefling could feel his head spinning at it all. They step inside and the room is almost baren save for the bed and a dresser for clothing that he currently lacked. There was a basin and a mirror and a door that Nott trotted to, throwing it open to reveal a small bath. 

“We can get water brought in, or if you ask nice enough, one of the casters can summon some water for you if they’re not too busy.” She digs out her flask and takes a swig and Molly contemplates asking for some but instead his eyes continue to roam his little abode. It feels almost like an inn, a tavern he and Yasha would stay at while resting with the circus or when they went off on adventures. 

Nott was speaking but Molly caught some of her words, watching the goblin walk back towards him and to the door. 

“- with a ride into town. Do you ride horses or are you a more carriage type?” She makes a motion with her hands and Molly knows it’s not offensive, but he’s not sure what type of gesture it is. 

Together they walk across the courtyard to the stables, though Nott has to pull him back from distractions left and right. The baker making bread and butcher preparing meat, all as a pang of hunger washes over Molly. Inside the stables, an elf and half-orc converse, only pausing until they see Nott and simply nod at her. She crawls up one of the gates to greet a muzzle sticking out of the stall and pats it happily.

"This is Water Closet. She'll be your horse for now."

Mollymauk makes a face at the name and approaches the stall to find a dun mare with a cream star over one eye and mismatched socks. Reaching a hand out he lets the horse lip at him before moving to allow Nott inside and following to help.

"Why Water Closet?" Molly asks as he eases the saddle atop her blanket as he fishes for the cinch.

"Caleb lets me name things, though Beau isn't good at making things either."

"Beau?"

Nott peaks her head out from the side of the horse and Molly thinks she would look cute if she didn’t sport the look of an angry gargoyle. 

“You’ll probably meet her sooner or later - she’s Caleb’s mystic, one of those Cobalt Soul types.” The words fly past Molly’s head but he doesn’t question her on it as the goblin moves to another stall and he again follows to help her. The mare that Nott dotes with pets and a softened peppermint is dark, with piercing eyes and a scar across her jaw. She stares at Molly for a long time before pushing her head into his chest and lipping at the strings of his shirt. 

“Well hello there gorgeous.” 

“I think Trash Bag likes you,” she quips before hefting the saddle blankets up onto the horse’s back. 

For a while both Nott and Molly are silent as they prepare the horses and Nott shows him how to get the bit in, though he has to suppress a laugh as the mares snort and shuffle, nearly toppling the goblin. Once fit and ready they mount up and the two men at the stables give a nod as they pass. 

As they leave the walls of the keep anxiety gurgles and bubbles into a deep pit of Mollymauk’s stomach and he shakes his head to dispel the words from the people that took him captive, kept him in chains. Nott starts talking again, telling him about the keep and the city below and though it’s a boring conversation Molly feels himself easing, relaxing. 

The forest is loud with the sounds of animals and life with woodcutters working away clearing new paths and carting away logs into the city. Drawing closer, up a slight hill they break from treeline. Aelsein sits cradled by the forest, only bisected by the roads that lead through and weave the city into neighborhoods. Farms encircle the southern roads that Molly and Nott come down into - the dirt roads breaking up with stone and grass as they make their way in. Few pay attention though some wave at Nott who just nods. There are more eyes on Molly, curious and watching so but he does much the same, gawking and watching the scenery as the farms give away into the city proper. 

“Where do you want to go first?” Nott looks over to him and Molly is still taking in the shops they pass, following the goblin to hitch their horses in front of one of the taverns. The Nimble Flower sits daintily between a bakery and one of the blacksmiths that borders into the crafting district. Its brick facing is decorated with flowers in paint and chalk as two children flit around both sides and make great work of the surface they can get their hands on. People come and go, never paying much mind save a passing glance that doesn’t linger. If it did, Molly wasn’t paying attention, drawing himself past the bakery to a tailor with bright greens and purples in the sign. The Draped Lotus felt like home to Molly with the carved wood and colored windows that beckoned him like a moth to a glittering flame. 

Even before the doors Molly could smell the incense and took a deep breath as his tail curled happily as he left Nott at the entrance and made his way inside. 

Rows and rows of fabrics hung in dresses, tops and bottoms. Skirts of a hundred colors swirling with shimmering stitches and ostentatious hats only the most daring of rogues could wear. Mollymauk gravitated toward many of the pieces, though some were dismissed based on the feeling, the look as he pressed them upon his body. The items he did take up were wrapped over his arm and he was already two rows in before he caught a voice at the front desk. 

“You’ve got great taste~” 

Looking over his eyes widen at the squat tiefling with molten gold eyes. Her crimson skin glimmers a bit in the light of her torch, teal hair tied in a bun that scatters across her shoulders. She waves at him and he bounds over, dropping some of the clothes on the clean spot of her desk. The woman is mending a few things, a few sketches set next to swatches of clothing. 

“Did you make all of these beautiful things?” When she nods he almost swoons, laying a few of them across the table. Nott huffs and his tail flicks, the spade tip catching at her side. “These are exquisite pieces ma’am. Please, your name?” 

“Ah,” she laughs a little, her face going a touch darker as she blushes and covers her mouth - her fangs - behind her hand. “Yumeko, I run and own the shop! I’m glad you like them.” Her hands come out to touch his and a cold feeling spreads over them but he just brightens. 

“If you ever, ever need a model or perhaps a muse,” Mollymauk tucks his fingers under his chin and props his head up just a touch to let the candlelight dance off the peacock tattoos etched into his skin. “I am most happy to work with you!” 

Yumeko’s laughter is sweetened with a snort and it delights Molly, curling his tail over his waist and letting the flat tip rest on the counter. 

“I’ll have to ask my wife - she is the one to help me pick models for upcoming shows,” she sits back and adjusts herself in the seat, a realization dawning that there are bundles wrapped around her waist, against her sides. Mollymauk leans in just a fraction to see curly tufts of white hair and nublings of horns, a chubby hand clutching to fabric and stops the urge to coo. 

“Well I may be in town for the foreseeable future,” he assures her as he pulls back and takes the clothes from the clean spot on her work table. “I’ll just be doing a bit more shopping.” Yumeko waves him off and lets him know if he’s needing anything he’s free to ask for help and once again the tiefling is left alone, purring his content as he shops. When he hears Nott snort at his side he looks over, showing her a blue skirt with a gold constellations sewn into the fabric.

“Something on your mind?” 

The goblin waves him off but her smile is lopsided. She’s looking at a scarf, plain and blue with a weight that Nott is testing by the way she pulls it through her fingers. Molly reaches over and takes it from the goblin’s fingers, grinning a little and weaving it around his shoulders even through her huffing and grumbling. It is pretty on him, but the color is familiar, something about it. Molly is shot back to a few days ago, when he first saw Widogast, saw the man who saved him. The color of his eyes fills his vision as he’s brought back to reality and the scarf around his neck. Mollymauk leaves Nott to go in search of something else, something gaudy that he can distract himself with to cool his face.

As he passes over one of the racks a coat catches his eyes, pausing to take in the splendor of the patchwork and beauty. It’s long, split at the sides up to his hips perfect for movement and dance. He sets the other items down on a chair beside a mirror and takes the coat off the rack, slipping it on his shoulders. It fit perfectly, loose to move but fit around the back and shoulders to cut a gorgeous figure even with the plain top and his boots. 

“Look at this - Nott!” He turns to the goblin who’s playing with a flask in her hands. As the goblin looks up her pupils expand, ears relaxing and Nott blinks a few times. 

“It looks a little garish, but it’s very bright. Very you.” 

Molly twirls for a moment before taking up the other garments into his hands and bringing them to Yumeko to purchase. She counts each item and charges him far less than Molly thought it would be, making sure to leave a tip as the red tiefling puts everything folded into a nice little bag for him.

After saying their goodbyes, Nott and Molly visit several other shops to collect other things for Molly’s stay. Nott tells him more about the city, places to stay away from and ideas on who might be looking for a bard or someone to hire. Most of the time Molly listens, though things still catch his attention - roving bands of children who run the streets with a shaggy dog in tow or families who catch his eye and smile warmly at him. When they return to the horses Molly ties everything to the rump of the horse and eventually the two make their way back towards the castle.

“What kind of things are needed around the castle? Jobs, hands, the like,” the words seem to trail off as Molly struggles to find what to ask for. Caleb had mentioned a job earlier in the day but there’s something nagging at him, a fear that the lord of the keep would have gone back on his words. Nott’s ears flick, looking over to Molly with a questioning glance. 

“There’s always someone needed, even if you’re just a runner for Caleb and the others, always a job. When you get settled in, we can always see if you can work in the fields, or perhaps in a store. That Yumeko lady seemed to like you.” The goblin takes up the reigns and she leads them through the path they’d come. Water Closet whinnies and Molly shifts to take control and as he looks back toward the path he sees someone sitting in a low branch of a tree, eating an apple. Nott whistles and the horses slow their walk and she draws a crossbow from under her cloak, taking a shot just under where they sit. In their surprise they drop the apple and swear in common and a clipped tongue. 

“You asshole!” 

The voice is irritated but Nott just laughs as she drops down, frowning at the apple before she kicks it. Nott stops her horse and Molly does the same, curious and wishing he had something to protect himself. With the distance closing Molly's able to pick more details of the woman, richly dyed monks robes frayed with use and work and a staff behind her back that Molly hopes there’s maybe a sling and she's not just holding it behind her with her shoulder muscles.

"You must be Caleb's newest find." The tone of her voice is amused even with her stern expression and Nott hisses when her flasked is fleeced by the woman beside her. 

"Molly, this is Beauregard. Part time Caleb's bodyguard, part time mystic and a whole pain in the ass- give me my flask, Beau!" As Nott had been talking Beau was moving until far enough away the mystic broke off into a sprint.Nott took off after Beau, shouting something about her liquor, urging her mare to pick up speed and leaving Molly in the dust.

Mollymauk waved his hands to clear the dust but by then the two were long gone and the tiefling sighed.hks hand came to caress the mares neck.

"Just you and us then I think. At least it's a straight shot back to the castle." Gently Molly urged the horse on with a gentle kick of his boot.The ride is steady, adjusting easily to the saddle shifting underneath him. It was calming in the warmth of the forest, taking in more of the trees and the wildlife that seemed to come into his senses again. The chirping of birds and scattered chatter of wildlife put him at ease, relaxing and leaning back, filling his own silence with song. 

“The whistling gypsy came over the hill,  
Down to the valley so shady;  
He whistled and he sang,  
Till the green woods rang,  
And he won the heart of a lady.

Ah di doo ah di doo dah day,  
Ah di doo ah de da-a-y  
He whistled and he sang,  
Till the green woods rang,  
And he won the heart of a lady.”

Mollymauk kept singing, mostly to himself and to ward off anything big enough to be a threat as he made his way back to the keep. As it came into view he saw not only Beauregard and Nott but Lord Widogast talking at the main gates and he ignored the flush of excitement as he coaxed Water Closet into a trot to close the distance. 

The wizard looks up from Nott and raises a hand in greeting and Molly returns the gesture, grinning as he slows close enough to dismount. 

“Good afternoon, my lord,” Molly takes Water Closet’s reins, crossing his legs and doing a half curtsey and bow. “I did not think we’d be in your fine company today as Nott was my guide.” Nott snorts at the words and waves a hand, finally grabbing the flask from the woman watching Caleb now. The man huffs in something like a laugh, looking down to the goblin now nursing her flask. 

“Thank you for taking care of Mollymauk, Nott. I have something for you to take care of once you’ve eaten so please, let us come in.” 

Caleb and Beauregard walk in stride with Molly and Nott into the keep and stables. The mystic sides up to Molly with her arms behind her head lazy and passive. 

“So where are you from, Mollymauk?” Her question glances him and Molly tilts his head, looking to her with a flicker of a grin and a show of fang. 

“It’s a matter of what you’re looking for in an answer, mystic. I thought people like you could see things like that?” 

There’s a scoff from Beau and a snort of laughter from the goblin who was distracted from her conversation with the lord. Beau elbows Molly, making him hiss at the bony impact and pushes her back, beginning a body check contest that the mystic only wins because the tiefling nearly topples against poor Nott when Beauregard moves out of the way. 

Once at the stables, the hands came to intercept the horses, handing Molly the satchel and packs he’d gotten in his shopping and fishing something out while Caleb spoke to the hands.There’s a moment in Molly’s internal monologue where he stops himself. When had he been referring to Lord Widgoast by his first name?He shutters up the feelings and focuses on the task at hand with both his hands rummaging through his bag. As he finds the blue scarf he bites his bottom lip, keeping it to his body while waiting and rejoins Nott and Beau who talked about something he didn’t pay a mind to. 

As he waits Mollymauk spots a fleeting figure, an orange cat who darts from one bush to the next carrying something in its mouth. It was too quick to see just what a kill or a quarry but, try as he might to follow wherever it led to no avail, nearly failing to hear what Caleb was saying until the human repeated himself. 

“Molly, are you ready for lunch?” 

“Right! I am famished. Oh-” As Molly moves to rejoin them he moves to Caleb and finally drapes the blue scarf over the human’s shoulders. There’s almost a squawk from Caleb, who takes a step back to look at the fabric, taking it in his fingers and inspecting it. Something arcane flickers and again the tiefling sees a wonder - he thinks - as Caleb’s eyes flash gold for just long enough before settling back into blue. He wants to forget it, the vision of the way the wizard looked at that moment but it is seared, printed into the back of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things seem to be developing at a good clip, don't they? Next chapter promises some good developments with not just the characters but the story as a whole - I hope you're enjoying reading! 
> 
> If you like this, kudos would be appreciated and comments help too, letting me see what you like. 
> 
> The song that Molly sings in this chapter is Gypsy Rover, the ballad written by Leo Maguire


	5. Welcome All Your Bastard Actions Back Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You both came from your own holdings to ask things of me, I could have turned you away and simply shut my doors to you." It would be a near death sentence but he could have done it. Caleb takes the note and tucks it away, looking back to the half-orc with his piercing gaze he opens his hand to Eodwulf.
> 
> "No matter our differences we must remain firm and steadfast for our king." The words bring bile to Caleb's throat but he does not flinch. Eodwulf looks at his hand for a long moment before taking it in his and shaking it firmly.
> 
> "For our king."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I'm a bit early but hey there readers! 
> 
> This weekend is going to be very long and busy and I might not have the time to post chapter this week so I wanted to come and grant you a boon! I won't promise much - you'll get the bill later. 
> 
> The usual thanks to my beta and my reader, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I have writing it. 
> 
> Warnings:  
> Nothing of note!

The dining hall feels less opulent than Molly imagines, but he takes it in stride, watching the others file in. Many are already eating, a small buffet put out for the workers to take and eat at their leisure. Some are already eating at tables, getting their fill. Molly and Nott approach the table eagerly and take up plates, perusing what is on offer. He ladles up some stew into a bowl making sure not to slosh the broth that fills his nose as hunger gnaws at him. They had given him food if he was to ask for it as he recovered, feeling the itch of his healing cheek as a reminder while fishing for some of the boiled potatoes. Someone was cutting into a baked lamb shank and Molly happily accepted a portion with a thanks and greetings.

Nott was the same, piling plenty of meat and vegetables and Molly found himself smiling as Caleb slid some fruit on her plate as well, a thick piece of bread filled with nuts and dried fruit to the side where it could sop up gravy. Molly found some soft cheese and fruit preserves, smearing both onto one of his slices of bread before finally joining the others at a table. Caleb was speaking with someone at the end of the buffet still holding his plate, and though Molly wanted to listen in, wanted to catch some of the conversation, he was still drawn to the gorgeous scarf that brought out the crystal blue of the wizards eyes and the hints of blond highlights in Caleb’s beard. 

Nott was already indulging in her food, slurping her soup and pushing around the gravy to mix with her potatoes as Beau sat down on Molly’s other side. Her plate was just as filled but she kept to the baked fish, pale with soft herbs and greens and fruit at the edge of her plate. Molly settles in and begins to eat, even if his attention is on Caleb until the wizard makes his way toward them and he drops his gaze to his plate, taking a bite of the lamb that melts in his mouth. Food has not tasted this good in a long while and he stopped himself from eating too fast, focusing on both meat and bread before realizing he had nothing to drink. 

“I’m going to get myself a drink,” Molly realizes he and Caleb are the only ones without something to wash their food down and looks to the lord and sets a lazy grin on his features. “Might I bring you something to sate your palette, my lord?” 

Caleb’s face flushes pink across his freckled cheeks and he looks away for only a moment before nodding. 

“Tea, would be nice. If you ask Hilda, she will brew some for me.” 

WIth that, Molly is gone, almost skipping as he makes his way to the doors of the kitchen. 

===

Caleb’s hand covers his face as Beauregard nearly gapes at the wizard across the table from her and Nott has a shaky hold on her flask.

“Caleb,” Nott sets the flask down and puts both hands on the table. “I’ll kill him if you need me to. I’ll do it, you know I will-” The man’s raised hand stops her and he waves it away. 

“It is fine, Nott.” He pulls the hand from his face and takes a quick breath to allow the flush to recede and not once will he react to Beau’s shaking shoulders of her silent laughter. Instead, he pops a slice of apple into his mouth, letting the tart sweetness coat his mouth as he looks back to the goblin. 

He doesn’t find the food appetizing but he knows if he doesn’t eat Nott might just pout at him the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening. Caleb scrapes a bit of gravy off his plate with his half eaten slice of bread and tops it with cheese that betrays him, falling to the floor to only be cleaned up later. He thinks he could give it to Frumpkin, but then his demeanour only continues to sour at the realization he could not find his dear cat. 

“Has no one been able to spot Frumpkin?” Caleb asks suddenly, interrupting Nott and Beau’s discussion by the surly look on the mystic’s features. “Sorry, I was just - I was wondering.” He leans his head on one of his hands. 

“I’ve looked at all of his usual hiding places,” Nott says before stuffing a bit of lamb into her face and continuing. “Usuall’ ‘e jus’ fin’s ‘s way ‘ome righ’?” Caleb makes a face at her poor manners and waves his hand at her and looks to Beau who also shrugs. 

“He’ll come back, Caleb! He’s a magic cat, right? Magic cats don’t just up and disappear on you, do they?” Beau shoves a bit of her food onto his plate, mostly salad greens that he takes up with his fork even though he’s the one now pouting before eating them. Nott downs the meat with a long drink from her flask and sighs. 

“I bet he’s just, exploring the dungeon or something. You haven’t even gone down there since you came into here, right?” The goblin’s ears flick back as Caleb levels her a gaze that speaks to a not now statement and she zips her lips. “I bet he’ll be fine.” 

Mollymauk’s laughter stirs Caleb from the doldrums and he turns to the door from the kitchens to find the tiefling with two mugs in his hands, tail curled around his waist. He rejoins the trio and sets the mug down, offering one to him as he settles down in his seat. Molly’s mug steams as he stirs some more honey from one of the offered jars, thanking Beau as then the tiefling is looking to him. Caleb looks back to his mug and quickly thanks him, ignoring the way his ears burn. The honey is offered to him, though he nearly drops it when he realizes he and Molly’s fingers have brushed together - the heat of the tiefling and his own burning skin mingling, but he’s quick to catch it before it clatters to the table. 

“Apologies, I was not paying attention,” it was a poor excuse but Molly didn’t seem taken aback, looking toward the door as Caleb fished at the bottom with a spoon for the dollops of honey to sweeten his drink. He realises the way conversations seem to lapse into silence, drawing the honeyed spoon from the jar and dropping it into his mug as two figures approach the table. 

“I told you, Astrid, he would be here.” 

“Keen observation, Wulf.” 

Caleb can feel his hackles raise and in his mind he can hear himself cursing in a thousand different languages as he looks up to find both Astrid Ober and Eodwulf Kipping standing at his end of the table. Caleb takes in his old friends and tries to calm his nerves; Astrid has her fine colored hair tied in a thick gorgeous braid that goes down her back, dressed in white with golden accents that trail and match the rings on her swaying tail. Eodwulf is his usual attire, the military garb decorated with every medal won and earned with a bronze lining on his lapel. He can feel Beauregard’s gaze on him but he says nothing until Mollymauk hears someone clear their throat. 

“You must be friends of Lord Widogast! It’s a pleasure~ I’m Mollymauk.” Then Molly extends a hand between the two of them and Caleb has to hold himself from either laughing or lashing out. 

The halfling woman regards the hand and her gaze leads up to look at the tiefling, dark eyes displaying curiosity while Eodwulf’s sharpened gaze is on the mystic who glares at the both of them. When Caleb feels Nott’s hand on his knee squeeze tight enough through the barrier of his pants he finally takes a breath in and stands, mug in hand. 

“Had I known you would be coming to the Keep I would have held my lunch in my private study. But, you are here,” he doesn’t stop watching the two as Astrid turns from Molly’s gesture of good will, hands on her hips. Eodwulf finally brings his gaze to meet Caleb’s and he suppresses anything more than a smile. 

“Come, we can talk in private. If you are hungry I can have food brought up.” 

Caleb does not dare look anywhere but forward as his food is forgotten and he leads the two from the dining hall and toward a set of doors. 

Their walk is silent save for the click of Astrid’s heels on the stone and the sounds of the outside around them fading away as they go to his main study and the large tables filled with books, papers and maps. A familiar map of the countries span across its features, figures scattered along the leather features in patterns, complicated but laid out precise. Astrid dusts one of the chairs before sitting upon it and leaning in while Eodwulf stands, leaning over and looking at the placement of the figurines. Caleb will send a message, wine and food sent up and for them to be left alone until said so. 

“You got a tiefling.” Astrid’s voice is warm, reaching over as she plays with a silver tower figure. It leans from one side to the other and Caleb feels like he can hear the cries of invisible, minuscule people in the displayed figure as she toys with it. When it topples she laughs, picking it up. “They’re a handsome thing, but I didn’t know you were fond of fiends.” 

Caleb glares but says nothing, going to his desk and retrieving a few papers from their earlier conversations. 

“So what do I owe the pleasure to the White Duchess and Copper Baron?” He returns to the table as Eodwulf draws out his own papers and with a flick of his fingers a rich colored feather like a shimmering flame comes to rest on its own on the parchment laid out. 

“We came to discuss what is happening in the South, to hopefully guard ourselves in the case conflict rises." Eodwulf pulls some papers from his satchel and waves his hand. Figures begin to move, battalions of miniature figures shifting on the board of the map of the countries Caleb's little castle borders on. "We have seen them moving West once again testing out hand. Troops have been sent along the border towns but they are few as many only join our army for the pay. King Ikithon wishes for us to incite something - make these humans see they need to join forces but," Eodwulf snorts and Caleb watches a flicker of smoke disappear. 

"There is only so much to be done with our kingdom broken into pieces. Astrid and I are too far away from most of the conflict, so we've come to ask you for aid." Eodwulf passes Caleb a note then which he takes, unfolding and reading the demands. 

"A thousand soldiers is easy, there are many looking for work. Fitting them in armor and training," Caleb can feel the headache forming behind his eyes, reaching blindly for his abicus and spinning quick numbers. He's plenty in his holding to support the effort given how well they've prospered in the last few years. "I will make a trip to the capital and speak with some of the armory, the weapon smiths. If they cannot bring weapons I can make due." He looks to Astrid who seems bored, picking her nails.

"I mostly came to make sure you two were civil," the halfling woman says without looking up. "My Copper Baron sometimes does not speak highly of the Red Prince." Caleb almost thinks she mirrors Eodwulf's words with the tone she keeps, tight and filled with venom. 

"You both came from your own holdings to ask things of me, I could have turned you away and simply shut my doors to you." It would be a near death sentence but he could have done it. Caleb takes the note and tucks it away, looking back to the half-orc with his piercing gaze he opens his hand to Eodwulf.

"No matter our differences we must remain firm and steadfast for our king." The words bring bile to Caleb's throat but he does not flinch. Eodwulf looks at his hand for a long moment before taking it in his and shaking it firmly.

"For our king." 

Astrid bears a smile with teeth far too sharp for a halfling and hops from her seat, brushing the front of her dress. The roll of parchment that had been skittering with a quill along it rolls and comes back into Eodwulf’s hands, tucking away among the other papers. The half-orc casts a hand as they stand together near the window. 

“We will speak in time, hopefully before winter besets the lands.” 

Caleb can give no response as the circle activates under their feet and the two are gone, leaving the man alone in his study. Magic coats his tongue but it does not help the taste of bile and venom crawling up his throat. He reaches for a drawer in his desk and takes up the flask in it, taking two deep swallows and capping it just as the door knocks three times in quick succession. 

“M’lord, you asked for food? Sir Mollymauk said you may need entertainment --” 

“Everyone needs a song or two, love--”

“So he came too.” 

Caleb can feel himself sigh, though a smile turns the corners of his lips, waving a hand and the door unlocks for them. The maids come in with a few plates of food and Mollymauk at the end of the train and a flash of cobalt blue lets the man know Beau and Nott are likely not far. Mollymauk holds a lute in hand, grinning as he comes in and takes up the space that Astrid had. The energy of the room shifts quickly, bright and airy that makes the wizard relax more into the space. As plates of food are set down there’s a frown upon the young maids face. 

“Your guests left already,” her hands come to her hips and Caleb can not help his chuckle. 

“I apologise for not telling you sooner, Lelian.” She waves her hand to him and looks to the door where Beau and Nott are peeking in. 

“They wouldn’t move two feet from my skirts once I got your message to bring food, left their own food to the wayside so I suppose it won’t go to waste, will it?” 

Beauregard looks away but Nott in her shamelessness comes into the room and takes up one of the seats at the table as Caleb cleans, tucking papers away as the three settle around the table. The strumming of the instrument as Mollymauk tunes is amusing, listening to the tiefling hum as he turns the knobs in the pegbox and clicks his tongue. 

“I was thinkin’ something easy,” Mollymauk says as he sits back in the chair and eases one leg over the arm of the chair. It was an obscene gesture that Caleb had to tear his gaze away instead of looking at the lines of the tieflings thighs in the tight pants he chose to wear, looking to Nott who gave him a quizzical look. “Maybe a little jig?” 

“Just shut up and play something,” Beau grouses out as she spears a steak, cutting it into chunks. Nott laughs as she unscrews the cap of her flask and takes a swig, ignoring the affronted look of the tiefling. 

“Fine fine, give me a moment.” 

Mollymauk rest his hand on the soundboard and Caleb watched his eyes closed, settled relaxed in his chair. He could see better the healing abrasions on his cheek and thankful it didn’t mar any of the tattoos across his face. Caleb didn’t take his eyes away even as Molly opened his again and their eyes met for a moment before the man began to sing. 

"O come tell me Sean O'Farrell,  
Tell me why you hurry so?  
""Hush ma bouchal, hush and listen"  
And his cheeks were all aglow  
"I bear orders from the Capt'n  
Get you ready quick and soon  
For the pikes must be together  
By the rising of the moon."

Mollymauk’s strumming comes faster, tapping out a rhythm on the leg braced over the leg of the chair. Nott taps her fingers slightly, not looking at the tiefling but she’s listening by the swivel of her ears. Beau is humming, she must know the tune. Caleb however, continues to stare, watching him. 

"O come tell me Sean O'Farrell  
Where the gath'rin is to be?  
At the old spot by the river,  
Well known to you and me.  
One more word for signal token,  
Whistle up the marchin' tune,  
With your pike upon your shoulder,  
By the rising of the moon.”

The bard’s voice is soothing on the wizard, able to eat and and though he wants to talk to Beau and Nott about what happened during the meeting he’s resolute to simply enjoy this. Nott talks about what they’d done while in town and mentions they may need to go into the city for supplies and Beau mentions a visit to the Reserve is in order. He chews his food slowly, appetite slowly returning.  
As the song finishes Mollymauk sets the lute down and rolls his shoulder, flexing and cracking his knuckles before reaching for one of the plates of food. 

“So that meeting thing, went well?” The tiefling’s voice is almost shy and Caleb looks up from his food to see the nervous look Mollymauk has and Beau from his side shifts and shrugs. 

“Nothing happened, beyond talking and a bit of planning for the future,” Caleb says hopefully casually enough to drop the subject and Molly seems to take it, looking to Nott and grinning. 

“We need to explore that little city again, I didn’t get to see all I wanted.” To which the goblin groans. Caleb chuckles, hiding the outburst with a mug to his lips when Beau makes a face at him and he simply ignores her. 

“I am planning for a trip into the city, so perhaps we can make the journey together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just what might be happening in the background, in the machinations of the White Duchess and the Copper Baron, and what does our Caleb have to do with it? Where is our poor sweet Frumpkin! 
> 
> All will be revealed soon. Please leave a comment about your favorite part, I'd really appreciate it! 
> 
> The song Molly sang is The Rising Of The Moon sang by several groups though I used Pirates For Sail as reference.


	6. To Have A Drink And Catch A Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know the storm gets us down,” the bard begins. “So I shall tell you a tale to warm our hearts, the story of how the dragons came to our land?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm late, I'm late for a very important date! 
> 
> A late posting of the most current chapter, I do apologize! Things are intense between work and real life so I've been unable to write let alone get to posting - as you can see. I'm going to be very busy until the first week of August as I'll be going to Gencon! So I'll be taking a break for a few weeks but hopefully have a new chapter for you around the 7th. And the 8th is my birthday, so please send some wishes if you'd like! 
> 
> As always, I want to share some thanks to my beta and my reader who I love very, very much.

A fine drizzle welcomed Mollymauk this morning as he, Beau and Nott made their way over the hills and through the woods to the town below the castle. Clouds had gathered and at the peak, he could see the forests that covered the landscape beyond farmland held wisps of fog that curled and only broke for the rain. Even with the summer months nearing the rain still held.

Mollymauk laments Caleb not joining them but the wizard’s words were clear of his needing to stay behind. So, the trio set off on the new day into the town. There were things that both the mystic and the goblin had to do and, tucked into the ostentatious coat, Molly had his own list of things to explore in this city. 

They came toward the farms that frame the outer skirts and Molly turns to Beau as she chews on a piece of jerky. 

“So how did you come to work for Widogast?” Molly shifted as Water Closet kicked a stone and swayed, patting her shoulder as Beau finished her bite of food. 

“You-” Beau’s look is incredulous, but Molly deems it's one of her few natural expressions. “You don’t know who Caleb is, do you?” When he shakes his head Beauregard shakes hers in response and Molly suppresses his urge to smack her horse’s rear. 

“Y’know how he like, has all this stuff to do, and all these people who follow him around?” Molly nods and Beau continues. 

“Well, the reason everyone listens to him is because-” 

Beauregard’s words are cut short and Molly’s heart nearly stops at the roar that comes to the east of them. A thunderous sound and the break of trees reveal a glimmering golden form, larger than life. Wings that unfold span fold and almost eclipse the sky as the dragon takes off into the air and it opens its mouth to call to others. Both Beau and Nott have stopped their horses to wait for the dragon to pass but Molly lets go of the reigns, not stopping as Water Closet crow hops, moving toward the opposite direction. 

“Molly?!” 

Chains on him again, tight and constricting over his heart, around his lungs as they pray and put him to the stone. When the dragon opened its mouth Molly could only fear, let the image imprint itself on his mind. Was that the dragon he was going to be sacrificed to? Then he was in the air, bucked off the mare as she turned full canter into the forest and left the tiefling to crash, crumpling into the now muddy trail as the drizzle turned to full rain. 

When his eyes open, Beau and Nott are there, the mystic helping him onto his feet as he tries to get a full, deep gulp of air. An ache settles in his lower back and Molly breathes out a groan as he stretches. The goblin has Water Closet’s reins, the horse no longer spooked though attentive with her ears swiveling which way and that and honestly Molly can’t be mad at her, he had the same reaction to the dragon. 

“You okay man?” 

Molly just waves her off though speaking feels like a feat beyond what he can do, rolling his shoulders and checking just to see how he feels as Nott comes back with the mare. He takes her, pets her nose with a muddy hand and relaxes when it seems the subject is dropped long enough for him to get back onto the horse. The saddle is damp, his pants are damp and he begins to turn back as Nott speaks.

“Let’s go to the tavern, warm up and drink till the storm passes.” 

He stops to look back to Nott who’s grinning at him.

“A drink sounds lovely.” 

The Bronze Fox sits between a few other inns and a shop where people come and go between booths, shying and hiding from the rain. Beau and Nott take the horses to the stable so Molly can find a spot for them and he gets lucky, snagging an empty table near the hearth that crackles and leaves Molly to relax and placate himself. He’s glad to not feel the mud across his back or in his boots and stretches himself over his chair as an elf comes to the table. Their skin is fair, with a hint of sun and a trio of scars that run down the side of their face, marring their earlobe. 

“Welcome, traveler,” they set a mug of ale that froths as it sloshes in the mug and Molly sits up, quirking a brow while his tail curls against the leg of his table. “I’d not seen you around here so if there’s somethin’ you’ll be needing, just ask.” They wink as they leave, attending to another set of tables as Nott and Beau finally make their way over to Molly who raises the ale in greeting. 

“I don’t see many taverns who are as kind as these ones,” Molly says as he truly takes in the establishment they’ve landed themselves in. The Bronze Fox’s stone walls have murals painted upon them, hung art and even a coat of arms that bares a red dragon crossed over with two swords; it catches Molly for a moment and he focuses on the shield to memorize the image. The dragon is fat, with a curling tail that runs along the border of the shield, and two white lilies that support the dragon’s head while the two swords rest upon it, not through it. 

“We work together to bring ourselves up, not down,” Beau says as she shoves her way into a seat, Nott sitting closest to the heat of the hearth and at the edge. Molly can see her whip thin tail curled against her body as she tries to warm the chill away. “We have a common goal and that’s to survive. With Caleb’s rule we’ve been able to see that, better than some places at least.” 

Coppa comes back with ale for Beau and Nott and there’s a nod to the two of them and Molly tilts his head. Words form on Molly’s tongue but he’s struggling to put them in the right order.

“What do - what do you mean, Caleb’s rule?” 

Beau gives him a look and Nott clings to the mug tighter and the elf gives him a funny look.

“You’re the tiefling staying in Prince Caleb’s castle, are you not? Do you not know where you are?” Coppa regards Molly with something odd in their eyes that makes Molly look away, down into his ale. 

“Honestly after traveling so long with those cultists I don’t really know where I am.” 

The elf gives him an owlish gaze before putting up a hand. They leave and return with a map that gets spread across the table. Spread over frayed edges Coppa's hand rests on one spot.

"This is Aelsein, capital of Valesenir, only recently made into the capital when Prince Widogast decided to settle here." 

Mollymauk looks over the map, trying to find anything recognizable, but there's nothing that looks familiar. He touches it, frowning.

"To be honest none of this looks familiar. I'm not a map type person but I'm also not from these countries." He returns to his mug. Uncomfort hangs across his shoulders in a heavy mantle, avoiding the gaze from Beau and Nott.

“Well, welcome to Valesenir,” Coppa gives a sympathetic look. “I’ll bring out some food for y'all, leave you be a bit.” The elf scoops up the map and quickly leaves them but Molly doesn’t speak. 

How far had he gone? As he ran fingers through his hair, letting them twine with knots into his fingers, pulling and styling his hair poorly, he wracked his brain, trying to think. Beau and Nott left him alone, letting him swim in his thoughts as he tipped his head down, tried to breathe. Everything felt too much, too loud.  
Thunder rumbled overhead and shook him from his thoughts, looking toward the window. It was still raining, people hiding underneath awnings and ducking into porches of shops as the storm got worse. Molly jumps when he hears laughter - loud, bright laughter as someone strummed on their instrument. 

“You back with us, Molly?” Nott’s big yellow eyes were on him, pupils a bit blown and the yellow flickered in the light, concerned for him. He couldn’t help his smile, reaching out and brushing the tips of his fingers over one of her ears. She shied away, but not far and flicks it against the opposing hand. 

“I’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry about me.” He looks up to see Coppa holding a trio of plates in their arms and smiling brightly their way. Each plate is filled with different foods that make the tiefling salivate. Steamed grouse in a thin rich brown gravy and stewed vegetables that come apart as he’s spooning them into his mouth. Nott has thick sausages that she bites into, uncaring as the juices from the casing dribbling down her chin. Beau seems the same even with her steamed vegetables and the wide, flat mushrooms topped with melted cheese and a red sauce. 

As they fill their bellies the music has since stopped and a new performer comes to the stage. An older human with locks of silver hair tucked behind his head in a messy bun. Molly likes his clothes, the jacquard vest deep burgundy accented in gold and silver and fingers covered in different kinds of rings. His kind of bard. 

“I know the storm gets us down,” the bard begins. “So I shall tell you a tale to warm our hearts, the story of how the dragons came to our land.” 

Molly offers a hunk of the grouse to Nott for two sausages, sopping up some of the gravy that drips off the bird with a thick, dark sweet bread. He settles in his seat a little better, eyes on the bard as he begins his story. 

“Now we all know that the dragons are numerous in size, in color and stature,” the bard waves his hand and smoke comes from his fingers in all colors one might imagine. They twist, weave between each other and form into vague shapes of dragon - their wings outstretched, necks long and thick. One, a white dragon with wisps of pink and blue, floats before being speared by a dark, smoky dragon with red eyes.

“Not everything was at peace with them. They fought, around us, over and some under us. For territory, for food and for show, they would ravage our homeland, our people and our way of life! They did not respect our trying to live. It is what we all want, isn’t it?” The smoke shifts and becomes green, vines that fizzle and waver with tiny flowers that erupt in every color in the tieflings coat. 

“Then, a few hundred years ago, a man came from the mountains. That man is King Dwendali, the first king of Ibaros. He was the one to bring us all together, the dragons and the humans. From him the hands of the kingdom have passed several times as we all know the storms of leadership are not for some.” A faded face appears in gray smoke that quickly dissolves into a groan, meshing with the smoke that fades into a deep black dragon once again, deep red eyes. 

“Our king now, long may his reign be,” those words receive hisses and a few disapproving noises from the locals as the bard continues. “Be he stubborn as a deaf mule in a thunderstorm he protects us, gives us our princes, our leaders and protects us from the dragons who seek us harm.” 

A black dragon surrounded by a blue dragon, taken down by a sleek white smoke dragon before it all explodes into color and fades from before everyone's eyes. 

“Be they man, monster or dragon, King Ikithon keeps them at bay with his children - their royalty and loyalty beyond a doubt what we need to push east, win the war.” 

Several patrons clap and a few raise their glasses and murmur the last words before knocking back their drink. The thunder grows louder, closer, shaking the windows near the door and Molly’s tail curls around his waist. Beau beside him is shaking her head, licking her spoon clean and putting it down. 

“He got some of it wrong.” 

Molly looks over, questioning with a quirk of his brow. Beauregard leans forward as she washes her food down with the last of her drink. 

“Ikithon isn’t some gracious noble,” her words are so quiet he has to strain, lean into the table to catch her words. “He gave Caleb and the others the lands so that he could laze about and do what he wants. If they fuck up, it’s on them. A stupid test.” The venom in her words chills Molly and his eyes go wide.

“You mean, those other two-”

“Astrid and Eodwulf. Technically Caleb’s siblings, though they’re as related as Beau and I might be,” Nott cuts in and she looks sour about it too, still chewing a bit of meat on her plate with her discolored, sharp teeth, though it's mostly gristle. “Caleb was adopted last, from an orphanage on the eastern border.” She waves her hand then, covering her mouth like she shouldn’t have said anything. 

Molly rubs his chin, the fine stubble that’s been growing out in the last few days since he was fully recovered enough to explore. The bard has since moved from his story to singing and strumming a lute as he waves more sensationalist stories, but Molly isn’t listening. 

“So what’s this about a war?” There’s twin groans from Nott and Beau and they’re getting up, abandoning their dishes and moving to pay, leaving Molly to trail behind and follow still questioning them. 

Standing on the porch Molly looks over the city through the trickling rain, lessened as the clouds part but the thunder still threatens along the southern edge, deeper into the city and where Molly was hoping to go. 

“What were you hoping to do, Molly? If it keeps storming like this I don’t want to worry about flooding.” Beau kicks her boots on the edge of a step to shake any mud left on them as if walking into the road won’t soak them once again. He looks down the road, justs shrugging.

“I wanted to explore for a few hours if that’s fine. We can meet back up here later.” 

Nott, pulling up her hood and hissing into the rain, pins her ears back and hops onto the railing. She’s small enough to look like a gargoyle if she stands still enough and Molly wonders if she’s done that before, hidden in plain sight like this. 

“That’s fine, yeah. Nott and I will meet you here in like, a couple hours.” Beau licks her lips and tugs out a pocket watch, taking a glance at it. It’s an unexpected item that catches the light, gold and well worn by the looks of it. “It won’t get truly dark for a while so we’ve got plenty of time.” 

Molly bids them both farewell, going the opposite direction to simply wander. He’s always loved doing this - wandering around cities he’s currently staying in. Passing the time between shows looking for new wares, places where he could spend a bit of money on food or even finding company on the lonely nights, Mollymauk felt he was almost able to learn everything about the places he played in this way. Even in the rain, the life of the city emerged in such small, beautiful ways. A tavern down another street, lit up warm with flowers that wrap around the frame of the windows paint the couples warming up like a painting. 

He passes two children who chuck marbles and fine stones into the mud, calling out some score in a game even though he’s not too interested in Molly fishes out a few smooth stone and an old marble he’d gotten from Toya, tossing it into the mud. Two sets of wide eyes stare at him and he winks just as the two dive and come for the marbles, laughing as mud cakes their hands and faces as they push each other. Stores catch and lose his interest, pausing at a blacksmith who simply nods at Molly before returning to their forge. He idles over the knives, playing with some of the tassels on scabbards before lingering on a long, gorgeous scimitar. 

“If you’re looking at Summer’s Dance, she’s up for sale, but it's a pretty penny.” The blacksmith draws themself from his work and follows Molly’s gaze. The blade is golden, etched with beautiful leaves and cherry blossoms that seem to float on their own wind. Molly blinks and he could swear the petals were in a different position than before. 

“How much?” 

The blacksmith looks at Molly, gaze drawing over his shoulders and down the wildly colored coat and huffs in a big puff of air that almost brings steam. 

“I got it as a trade, s’been used a bit before it came to me.” There’s calculations going on in their head and the blacksmith shrugs. “Thousand gold.” 

Molly’s eyes go wide and he’ll look into his pouch and his shoulders sag. It’s not enough, not by a longshot. Chewing his lip he looks back to the blacksmith, the dirt and grime that seems to coat everything. 

“Are you looking for someone to keep your shop clean?” 

The blacksmith snorts a laugh but it’s warm, shaking his head. 

“My last apprentice just left to get married to her wife, so I haven’t really had time to do much more than work on current projects.” Their eyes go back to the sword, contemplating once again. 

“I can clean, organize, sing. I’d be up to learning a few tricks with blacksmithing but I can’t promise much as I’ve never had the ability to learn before.” Molly keeps his eyes on the blacksmith who has that rugged, deep smile on their face. Turning to Molly they hold out their hand.

“Wursh.”

Molly takes the hand and shakes it with a squeeze like he remembered Yasha would do to show that he meant business. 

“Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to my friends.” 

The half-orc laughs, broad shoulders shaking and he can even see the dust falling off his shoulders, almost charming. 

“Sit with me awhile, and we can discuss what things you’ll be doing for me. Then, we can talk about payment for the sword.” 

Wursh moves aside Molly to flip a sign at the front of the door - Busy, Come Back Later - before making his way to a table behind the main counter. When the half-orc sits the whole chair creaks but maintains its stability and Molly follows to perch in one of the chairs.

“So,” Wursh quirks a brow at Molly then, watching the tiefling wipe a bit of soot off the table so he could set his elbows upon it. “You want to work at a blacksmiths?” 

“I mean I’ll work anywhere that lets me,” Molly replies with a flick of his tail that swishes across the ground. “I need a job, need to get my life together again.” When he sees the blacksmith give him a look the tiefling swallows any of the nerves he has and tells the story of his arrival into the city, into Prince Caleb’s domain. Wursh seems to listen though his face remains impassive even with the way Molly flourishes and uses all his charm to make it seem like he isn’t a fish out of water and far out of his depth. 

“So you don’t want to remain suckling at the teet of the kingdom, to strike money on your own.” 

Molly feels his face color but he nods. 

“I want to do something with myself and not sit in the castle like some lady in waiting. There’s a life outside, and if I want to find my friends and return to them, making money is a good goal to have.” 

Wursh nods with Molly, resting both hands on the table.

“Twenty gold a week, since you’re wanting the Summer’s dance I’ll take half of what you’d originally get.” Wursh waves a hand around his shop. “Since you don’t need room or board I won’t duct anymore but if you want projects and learn to smith too, I can take a little more. Though if you get good enough and take orders for customers, you get to keep that money if they’re satisfied with it.” The half-orc extends his hand out to Molly who easily takes it, finding comfort in the warm, calloused hands. 

“It’s a deal.” 

The half-orc smiles at him with a bit of yellowed teeth, setting up the time where Molly would start before sending the tiefling off on his way. It’ll take some time to save up for Summer’s Dance as he’s dusting himself off and gearing up for a few more shops to visit he thinks of other jobs, perhaps nights at the tavern to sing and dance or even doing a bit of reading for the locals. Finding a good deck of tarot cards might be hard but - 

Hands grab at him, someone speaking to him and he almost starts to snarl until the smell of petrichor and sunflowers hits his nose. He scrambles, half fighting the hands on him only to turn and face his captor. 

Far taller than him with broad shoulders covered in thick dark leather. Her hair is messy as always, falling in obtuse curls that half frame her face with braids that tie behind her ears. Her mismatched eyes crinkle when he gasps and buries his face into her bosom.

“Yasha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading!! 
> 
> I really love what I have in store for this fanfic and I can't wait to show all of you. Obviously we're already so deep into this and now it's just, gotten to be so deep with lore and character interaction. 
> 
> Let me know your favorite part of this chapter, or comment what you're excited to learn about.
> 
> Thank you for letting me tell you this story, and I can not wait till I return from my mini hiatus with more.


	7. Feel As Lonely As I Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s something in his eyes, almost anger? It is darker but not the man she had spent the last few days with. “I typically keep off the main road. Heard of folks looking for knights to sacrifice to a dragon.” Fjord snorts but his next words are lost in a rush of anger. Molly. 
> 
> She’s upon him and he doesn’t realize what is happening until there’s her hands around his neck and rage glimmering in her mismatched eyes. 
> 
> “You.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back my pretties. I've come to bare a gift to all of you in thanks for being so patient; an early chapter! 
> 
> I'm really happy to see the reception of this fic and I hope the enjoyment continues. It warms my tiny deer heart to see people excited for updates. 
> 
> As always a thank you to my beta and my readers who without this I couldn't do anything but flounder like a floppy fish.
> 
> Warnings in this Chapter:  
> Cultists  
> Violence  
> Threats of violence/coercion

Yasha woke up with the taste of dirt in her mouth, spitting it up and struggling to take her first few breaths. It was dark out, the stars twinkling across the sky in beautiful formations, laying out the directions she needed. Everything ached and her shoulders felt like she’d been carrying several men. Everything laid out beyond her revealed just what her night was. 

The tavern was destroyed. Bodies, unconscious, were strewn over tables and across the floor. Food, blood and ale soaked into the wood creating a pungent smell that made Yasha cover her nose with her hand. She approached the bar where the innkeep was laid out, snoring and Yasha remembered that she, in fact, had slammed his head into the bar when she learned where they’d taken Molly. 

She made sure she replaced what she took, a few days rations, a wineskin filled with water. Making it back to her room, Yasha collected the rest of her belongings that seemed important, looking at the little bag Molly had left in their room and taking it into her arms, closing her eyes and squeezing it. It was then she made the promise that she would find him, _ whatever  _ it took.

It was still early morning when she picked her way through the tavern, deciding to pick a few pockets before leaving. Sun came, speckled through the trees that shifted in the wind, swaying delicately as the woman stole away, finding the stables. Her horse was still there, though its mate, Molly’s black mare, was gone. Anger again bubbled up in her chest but the snort of the dappled gelding nosed and lipped at her, making her smile. 

“You’re right, Helios, we should go find him.” 

The information she was given by the men in the tavern helped, and aided by a map, she began to ride in hopes of tracking them down. Those cultists had a day and a half on her and Yasha had to curb her fears, letting herself hope it wasn’t too late. As Yasha made her way through the town, she watched it wake up, taking in the smells of the new cooking fires, bread being baked as the sun breached the treeline. By the time the bells rang, someone realizing just what had happened at the tavern, she was long gone and far down a beaten path with her horse, speeding along the undergrowth. 

Only when the sun reached its peak in the sky did Yasha take her first break, letting Helios take a drink nearby as she relaxed. She stretched her back, letting her muscles relax from intense riding, arching her back and groaning. The sound of water splashing caught her attention, hand easily resting on her hilt. Investigating the sound she rounded a set of thicket and peeking through it to spot a nude half-orc, quickly pulling away. 

“Hey there,” Yasha called out and the splashing immediately stopped. She waited a few beats before calling again. “I’m armed, but I’m not here to hurt. Are you okay?” 

She didn’t think there would be an answer before there was a cough, a clearing of his throat. 

“Well met, you caught me in a predicament. I was just takin’ a moment to clean myself off, but ah, if you wanna talk proper, give me a quick moment.” There was shuffling and more sloshing of water and mud before rustling of grass. Yasha bid her time chewing on a slab of jerky with her hand still on the hilt of her sword, looking over at Helios as he grazed in the shade of a tree. 

 

The half-orc came out in good looking armor, leather dyed and accented with studs and a thick red cord that looked between nice detailing and bondage gear, though she could not throw a stone without comments about the belts she wore. He gave her a shy grin and nodded in her direction and she returned the gesture as he pulled water from his hair and shook it out. 

“Thanks for bein’ kind, the name’s Fjord, it’s a pleasure.” He held out a hand and she quirked a brow at it, taking it with a small smile. 

“Yasha. I did not think I would find someone bathing, so I suppose I was lucky in some regard. Are you travelling alone?” She offered him a piece of jerky, remembering Molly had always used food and kindness to hopefully win him over. People typically didn’t attack if you attempted to be nice. Fjord took the jerky with a quick thank you, taking a bite and humming through it. 

“I’m takin’ a bit of a walk’round, heading towards the capital,maybe find a few jobs on the way. And you?” 

She bit her lip through the chewing. 

“Looking for someone. Trying to find someone very dear to me.” 

They got quiet then, Yasha finishing her piece of jerky and moving toward her horse. She couldn’t hear Fjord moving and when she looked back he was adjusting his armor, rolling his shoulders. 

“We seem to be heading in the same direction, if you’d like to join me, the company would be nice.”

Seeing the smile on Fjord’s face was reassuring and painful, the slight uptick of a smile that reminded her so much of Molly. He came to greet Helios who snuffled and lipped at the half-orcs fingers and he laughed a bit. 

Together they continued down the path through the woods that began to thin and a rocky path that gave way to the beginnings of a mountain range. Fjord told her it was Effingnet Mountains holstering both Piarsa and Romainkkon, leading to Strander’s Mountain.

“Strander?” Yasha asked as they crest a steep hill, revealing the valley made sunwarm with the sun that begins its creeping toward the horizon. Yellows and oranges faded through and hit the village, showing the path that the woman points out to Fjord. 

“Strander was the man who settled at the base of the mountain, he ended up being one of the councilmen to Dwendali after the empire found peace, I think.” Fjord shrugged and started his way down with Yasha following him. 

Bredon looked peaceful, rows of houses intermingled between farmland and a small center with a tiny market closing up for the night as Yasha and Fjord descended from the hills. Some of the houses seemed to almost be carved into the overhang where a watch tower sat at the top. The first inn they came to was squat, sat between an abandoned shop and an apothecary but was open with a glow from a fire illuminated in the windows. 

Stepping into The Welcoming Harper the smell of stew nearly overwhelmed the both of them, rumbling bellies easily deciding for them to stay. Taking up a table they were welcomed by a round halfling with bright emerald eyes. Yasha notes the club at her hip but keeps smiling. 

“I’m Mera, m’wife owns the inn but I take care a’ things. So if you’re hungry, I got food. We don’t got no private rooms left but plenty hammocks in the shared rooms.” She lists off the foods of the night and ale on tap. When she leaves Yasha sees Mera holding her back, shouting the order to the cook who shouts right back before they laugh. 

The food is delicious, a thick mutton stew with chunks of vegetables and seedy biscuits to mop it up. Fjord has a slab of pork belly and pickled vegetables and a flat, malleable bread. Eating in silence they fill their bellies, washing it down with mugs of wine and a bittersweet ale tasting of apples and oats. 

Mera’s hammocks are softer than Yasha could have imagined, with thick blankets and a pillow, and she quickly settles into sleep. 

In the morning they set out with supplies replenished, though Yasha asks questions of both a bard and a band of people passing through.

Fjord was able to get the information out of them, of the cultists moving through the town to replenish supplies before heading to the mouth of the mountain. As he told her this, Yasha couldn’t think beyond her anger. It seemed Molly had tried to escape, tried to free himself and they threw him back into the carriage like he was a sack of potatoes. Her chest tightened and she grit her teeth, trying to keep calm. 

Most of the day they kept silent, simply picking through the trees as they followed the path the cultists had taken on their way deeper into Romaninkkon, at one point breaking through the trail onto a wide, paved path.

“What is this?” Yasha looked to Fjord as he guided the horse through the small ditch onto the paved road. There were even guards posted every so often, and towers further down toward the horizon. Here, civilization seemed to pocket itself against the road’s diverging paths with shanty towns, tents, and ramshackle houses built out of anything people could get their hands on. 

“Merchant’s Road. Old King Dwendali was the one to construct this with the help of the dragons, so the story goes.” Fjord gave the final push to the gelding and the horse finally moved to his side and up onto the stone walkway. “They created the Road to expand commerce and make it safer for people to travel.” Fjord pulls out a compass, looking in the direction they came as a reference before turning right and Yasha moving to comfort the gelding as he refused to move. 

“You must have come from here, then, if you know so much.” Yasha points out, running fingers over the horse’s nose and letting it lip and mouth at her. She brings out a little cube of sugar and lets it eat from her palm as Fjord hems and haws, shrugging. 

“I was taught many things while I trained in Binares. Made a knight, now workin’ for what I can,” he looks away from her and Yasha takes in the cross of his arms. She lets it go for now, choosing instead to take the reigns of her horse from the half-orc as they continue to walk. But they do not walk in silence as conversations from passing merchants catch their ear, from guards who talk of plans and their own rumors. Of the dragons that travel in the summer to roost in the forests and along the southern coast and the worries of war coming to Ibaros. Yasha’s hands clench the reigns. 

The guard tower sprawled above them, stone and woodwork that climbs against several trees that give the small complex a bit of shade. As they pass the guards give them a bit of a look but Yasha keeps her head down, away from their gaze. 

When night creeps upon them they find one of the nicer looking inns along the road and pay for lodging, shelling out several gold for room and board. Yasha lets her hair down to brush out the leaves and retie her braids while Fjord polishes his armor in their corner of the inn when she asks him.

“What made you leave?” She watches his shoulders tense, hands pausing in his work to make the colors of the dyed leather clearer through the grime and walking after a few long days of travel. 

“What d’you mean?” 

Yasha licks her lips, never taking eyes off the calluses on his square fingers. 

“You said you learned a lot, where you grew up, but you’re on your own now. Knights,” she can feel the temperature in the room dropping, cooled along her skin. “Knights typically have a place, a  _ meaning _ . They fight for something, protect something.” Fjord’s grip on his armor tightens, and she shifts as if only listening, her hand finding the hilt of her sword at her side. 

Fjord laughs and it jars her, making her blink and watch as his whole demeanor shifts and he goes back to working on the armor, letting the rag work where his fingers can’t reach into the grooves and crevices. 

“Sometimes...it’s better to simply ask the questions you want to know the answers to, than running around them the long way, Miss Yasha.” Fjord pulls the rag from his grip and grimaces at the state its in before regarding his chestplate and deeming it fit to be set aside for another piece. “I left when it became apparent that my Sovereign wanted didn’t quite align with my own beliefs.” He uses a different less dirty cloth for the greaves and gauntlets while Yasha pulls from the conversation until her eyes flicker back to his figure. 

“Just where were you coming from, then? Surely you couldn’t have come from anywhere but Pisara,” she watches the way his shoulders square but he doesn’t stop in his work, pressing along the creases in the thick material. 

“Yeah, Pisara. Ain’t much reason to go by boat unless I’m feelin’ keen on getting out of Ibaros but,” he slows in his strokes finally looking at Yasha. There’s something in his eyes, almost anger? It is darker but not the man she had spent the last few days with. “I typically keep off the main road. Heard of folks looking for knights to sacrifice to a dragon.” Fjord snorts but his next words are lost in a rush of anger.  _ Molly.  _

She’s upon him and he doesn’t realize what is happening until there’s her hands around his neck and rage glimmering in her mismatched eyes. 

_ “You.”  _

He’s trying to speak, but a well placed hand to his windpipe has Fjord silent again. Yasha can hear the rumbling of thunder at the back of her mind, a storm whipping itself outside, and she takes a breath and closes her eyes. She forces herself to relax the girp on the man’s neck and he doesn’t move, still as the grave. 

“ _ You _ were what they were looking for,” Yasha starts again, hands still firm on his neck, sat square in the half-orc’s lap. She can see his sword is too far to reach, but she does not assume he is unarmed, Yasha has known smarter knights. “Because of you skirting along the less traveled paths, my,” words that could blossom forth only bud on her lips and she bites the affection before it could come forth. “My friend. He was taken, because of  _ you. _ ” 

With one last squeeze, Fjord finally springs and grabs her forearms, forcing them off his neck. They struggle for dominance and crash around the room, but it only takes one well placed boot between Fjord’s knees to get the man to relent and curl into his side. Again Yasha straddles him, gets into his personal space and watches as the man shies and straightens his spine. He refuses to meet her eyes and there’s a thrill in this, like before. Molly’s voice in the back of her mind flickers, comes to her mind as she’s grabbing a fistful of Fjord’s hair. 

_ “Simmer down, Yasha, you don’t throw lightning anymore.”  _

Instead, Yasha grabs hold of Fjord’s face and makes her look into her eyes, watches the way the slits of pupils contract and expand in the swirling emotions. Fear, arousal, guilt. She simply waits until words that are not angry and hurtful come from her mouth.

“You are going to help me find him. It will be a duty, since you lack something to bind yourself to.” She gets off his lap and pushes invisible dirt from her knees and takes up her pack. “I will be waiting for you in the morning. If you think you can evade me like you have evaded your old sovereign, you will be displeased to learn I track far better than any monarch could pay for.” 

Outside, Yasha screams into the storm. She lets the sounds carry as the rain soaks her from her spot far enough to be unbothered. When she returns, Fjord is curled in his cot and she strips her wet clothes and stokes a fire in the tiny pit that helps drive the chill away. When she returns to her cot there’s an extra blanket there, though a quick glance reveals Fjord hasn’t moved from his spot. Her eyes narrow, but she simply takes the two blankets and lets herself rest. 

In the morning she woke alone but found Fjord sitting at a table with his breakfast and a map laid out of the local areas, tapping his jaw with a finger and she sat beside him. 

“I asked a few questions to the locals, they’d said they came across a coupl’a groups, not many travel in bands unless its merchants or a band a folk.” Fjord seems to make a face that Yasha files away for later questioning. “Can you tell me ‘bout the people you and your friend had a run in with?” 

After partaking in a sour-sweet drink that refreshes her tongue Yasha retells what she can remember from then; traveling with Mollymauk and the circus, breaking off for a few days break to meet in a city just beyond the border. They were spending a bit of coin they’d earned in a tavern when her friend had decided he wanted to play nice with the wench of the moment. 

“She had asked about knights, and of course Molly...” there’s an ache in her chest but she’s still smiling, still holding that hope in her. “He wanted to sleep with her. So he said he was a knight.” She snorts at the look Fjord gave her but she waves her hand and takes a sip of the juice, gooseberries and lemon though softened. Yasha tucks away the idea to buy a bottle before she leaves, back to Fjord.

“After that, it became drink after drink, getting us both intoxicated. When two men approached Molly, became ah,” she licked her lips a moment. “Handsy? They were taking him. I tried to protect him. I must have blacked out, because I next woke at night, surrounded by unconscious bodies and no Molly.”

Fjord is nodding with her words but she can see the way his steepled fingers are stiffened, nervous in the idea of fighting. Of running. He exhales a breath and the posture loosens, relaxes into something smoother and fluid. It’s natural for him, this persona of confidence. 

“Well, we best be heading to this route South, down through Romaninkkon. The capitol’s got good contacts I know of,” Fjord waves off her suspicious look. “I’m not gonna leave you high an’ dry,” he takes his mug and downs the rest of it, wiping froth from his bottom lip. “You’re right. I owe ya. A debt or somethin’. Once I get you back to your friend, I’m clear, an’ we don’t gotta deal with each other anymore. Yeah?” 

Yasha, satisfied, calls over for a bottle of sparkling juice and an ale for her knight. 

It would take only a day to reach Hennau, the capital and main port city of which Fjord spoke of. Yasha had seen port cities; lived on them and fought for scraps, survival and even pillaged the smaller ports that couldn’t hold something like her. But Hennau was tight knit with shipyards built high into the rock where waves crashed with a fighting spirit. The lines between wealth and disparity seemed to blur, hungry folk grinning with wealth in kindness while ones of nobility kept to themselves, furthered by their own means and gain. 

There, she and Fjord would have a run-in with a small group of scraggly, hungry bandits on their first night in the city. 

They were on their way to a tavern Fjord had sworn up and down had the best shellfish this side of the coast and she had been too amused by his excitement to tell him she hated fish. As they turned a corner she heard someone speak, just loud enough to be heard and turned her head. Three men stood at the end of the street, one holding a rusted sword and the other a mace. Their clothes were ragged, some just rags sewn into a shirt and she almost felt pity. Then one man spat at her.

“Didya hear me? Gimmie yer money!” 

When Yasha drew her blade two of the men took a step back, looking to the leader who kept a trembling hold of his blade. 

“L-look, we don’t want no trouble, just give us your gold an’ we’ll be on our way!” 

She took only two steps and the three men scattered, yelling obscenities and calling that they’d be back and she snorted, sheathing her blade. 

“You can be real scary when you wanna be, Miss Yasha.” 

Her smile takes a glint that makes Fjord take a half-step back before she begins to chuckle and eventually Fjord joins in. There’s no followup beside nudging him to lead the way once again. The little inn is tucked between two buildings shut down for the night and they eat, ready themselves for bed. She will not admit it to Fjord but the fried crab bits have emboldened her. She may try fish, one day. 

It takes little time for them to find information on the people that have taken Molly. Hope bridled by fear build within Yasha when she learns that the cult is known for sacrificing both willing and unwilling to the local red dragon. They sit in a humid room with an old gnome that smokes like a chimney and she talks about the cult with a jagged tone around the pipe. 

“Those cultists? Aye, they’re known to be a handful. Like to act like they’re all for the greater good those ones. Beggars can’t be choosers, ones to use blood and entrails to appease the dragon in sights the dragon of choice has been seen in.” The gnome prattles on but blood has rushed into Yasha’s ears as her fears settle into a disturbing image of Molly being laid out as some sort of feast for a dragon. 

Fjord’s hand makes her jump - brought from those dark thoughts but she nearly crushes the hand on her. 

“Listen - those cultists are most likely to just drop someone if they ain’t useful,” her look makes him sputter, dangerous and fearful. “The old gnome said they’re likely to have ceremonies where they know this red dragon rests its head. There are a couple places we can check out as we go South. We’ll find your Molly.” 

The words do not bring her much comfort but she follows Fjord’s line of thought. Over the next few days they move through the city and along the coastline, watching and observing the gorgeous waves that hit the high rock faces and spray her in salt. Fjord seems fine in this, leaning into the wind almost and letting his armor get soaked with the sea spray. 

On the fourth day of travel they finally break from the coast and finally past the border into Valesnir to find one of the sites said to host a dragon. The whole morning the sounds of dragons, chitinous and growling with every fluttering and flapping of wings. Yasha was cautious but again it was Fjord who’s natural confidence, drawing into a small village that crawls with small and medium dragons. It’s a curious sight; though Yasha has come in contact with dragons, seeing a young woman with a small lavender dragon curled on her shoulder jars her. 

At the site Yasha finds herself disgusted. Offerings of slaughtered farm animals, mead and wine spilled in runelike patterns. Incense cloys her tongue, smoke at a small smouldering bush where a group of cloaked figures kneel, bow before the pyre. Fjord is able to stop her from storming over even as thunder threatens to the north of the little town. 

“We’ll just, ask a few questions, no violence Miss Yasha.” 

Her questions are clipped and it's hard to turn the aggression out of her voice but she does her best, biting the inside of her cheek so as to not snap when they yield their answers. Fjord is able to step in when that happens, able to coax the answers out with a bit of his charm. She’s half listening to the conversations as she watches the way the cultists pray around some tampened grass, laying offerings and absorbed in their own world. How could they simply lay their things for some being that could kill them, destroy them, angers her in a way she knows shouldn’t but all Yasha can do is breathe. Molly taught her to contain her unbound anger, and she could never go against her promises. 

Its while she’s focusing on her breathing does she spot someone sitting amongst a few of the cultists in silent prayer watching her. She looks over her shoulder to ensure the person is not looking behind her but when she turns her gaze back they’re gone. 

“I like your sword.” 

There is strength in not punching someone for surprising you, as there is strength for Yasha to not throw the person across the field. Her startled noise could not be contained however and she looks down to see those same deep blue eyes looking into hers. They’re a tiefling as well though her skin is softer with rounded cheeks and a complexion that displays simple youth and sweets. Her smile reveals her sharpened canines but Yasha feels the warmth in her gaze as her freckled nose scrunches just as her eyes crinkle at the sides. 

“I’m Jester, Jester Lavorre.” The tiefling - Jester - offers her hand to Yasha and she pauses for a few long moments to take the hand, bring it to her knuckles for a slight brush against her lips. No hidden daggers, nothing carved into the palm. The noise that Jester makes is soft, a small tip of a sigh like a moan that makes Yasha’s lips quirk just slightly. 

“Do you need to know my name?”

“Well, no,” Jester says, though the pout betrays the words. “But I would  _ like _ to know your name.” 

After Yasha gives her name - such a simple, small thing - the tiefling positively radiates and opens around her. Tells her about little things like travel or the weather and when she asks about Yasha she finds herself easy to comply. It is a small thing, like this, that settles the ache and smoothes over soft brambles of old aching wounds. This tiefling reminds her of two people lost, one hoping to be found. 

When Fjord returns from talking with the cultists he finds Yasha being taught to play a card game, a small guilty smile on her face and Fjord just quirks a brow. 

“I know where they’ve gone. We’ll have to go farther south, toward the Southern coast. Prepare for it to get hot.” His eyes are however on Jester, eyeing the tiefling who’s never moved her gaze from her cards though Yasha can see the woman’s tail swish and curl in a pleasant, happy way. “They helped me figure the map a little better so we can get closer to the other site.” 

“Are you looking for something?” Jester finally speaks and Yasha shakes her head. “Well, I have  _ very  _ good eyes, I can find many different things if you would like!” 

Yasha finds herself smiling and as she offers the cards back to Jester their fingers brush. The tiefling is cold to her touch which makes her eyes widen a fraction but she does nothing to bring it up, tucking the tidbit for later. 

“We are looking for someone dear to me,” Yasha explains, retelling an abridged version, the story Yasha had been telling herself several times over as the days had been going on. Main points, almost like it could distance herself from the pain and her own churning emotions. 

At its end Yasha can feel the mist in her eyes, her emotions tempting to pour over but she feels arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her closer and looking down there is Jester, arms thrown around her middle and those big blue eyes sparkling with her own unshed tears. 

“I’ll help you find him, Yasha, I’ll help you find Mollymauk!” 

For the rest of the afternoon Yasha and Fjord try to dissuade the girl - Fjord because he’s unsure of her skills as a fighter, Yasha in the hopes to not bring more people into this mess. But Jester is steadfast, sticking to her word and continuing to follow them. They walk alongside their horses toward a smaller town in hopes of finding an inn and Jester pushes between them, grinning wide. 

“I’ll pay for dinner and drinks if you let me stay with you~” 

The prospect makes them pause and Yasha looks down to see the tiefling’s smug little smile. Yasha had wished she could deny the woman, but there was no going back as her smile made her chest ache and twist in a way Mollymauk never could. 

“Fine.” 

Jester’s victory cry nearly spooked Fjord’s horse but neither of them hid their smiles. 

It took another two full days of travel to finally reach where Fjord said Mollymauk was being taken to - the site where the red dragon was last scene had been all but cordoned off. The forest was dense but as soon as she saw the same symbols of the cult carved into a tree she broke off from the other two and ran as quick as her lungs could carry her. 

The site itself was empty - offerings sitting scattered and food scavenged, left only were empty bottles and refuse and small rotting morsels that made Yasha’s nose turn. She kept looking, searching for any sign of her best friend. Jester and Fjord were talking some distance away - she could hear them at the edge of the clearing not far from where she was. Her foot brushed something and a horrifying sound met her ears. Chains, grating against the underbrush and half turned rocks. As she looked around, trying to focus to find any sort of a scene she saw a small smear of blood across a rock, dried and old. Turning away from the stone her eyes caught a patch of undergrowth scorched and slowly coming back to bud and greenery. 

Fear gripped her heart. 

“Yasha?” 

Fjord’s voice made her turn and she saw him point in another direction. 

“There’s a town not far from here.” 

Jester walked alongside Yasha, babbling about how nice it would be to be in a city again, to bathe and enjoy a nice dinner by a fire that wasn’t accompanied by sleeping on the ground. They found were the farms melted into a town, where dirt roads gave way to cobblestones. Yasha looked around, trying to gauge just what kind of people lived in such a remote pocket of forest bisected only by market roads to the capital and the coast.

Once again Fjord and Jester are talking about what to do first - getting a room and shelter for the horses while they investigate or to find somewhere to eat. 

“I am going to go look for a city guard,” Yasha declares which makes the other two stop. They exchange a look and she can not tell what they are thinking but the gentle pull of Jester’s eyes tells her there is nothing wrong, simply emotional. 

“I shall find you both once I am done.” She makes sure to give Jester at least a smile as they part, shaking her head as they go back to bickering. 

Finding the guards tower was easy though speaking to them was closer to arguing with a brick wall. None that she spoke to had heard or seen Mollymauk and gave little information that anyone may be able to help her. In her frustration she slammed a hand against one of the walls as she left. It hurts but she ignores it and leaves them, wandering the streets again.

She nearly throws herself into an opening door, causing her to admonish the person until she hears the voice. The similar cadance, and then the sweeping, curly hair and the familiar peacock tattoo. Yasha doesn’t stop herself as she grabs for him, saying his name over and over as her words fall from first human to celestial, tears welling and finally overflowing. 

_ “Mollymauk.”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Mollymauk.” 
> 
>  
> 
> Aah! I think I've outdone myself with this chapter if I do say so myself. Really lays out some fun things to come in the future too! 
> 
> Let me know your favorite part of this chapter if you would? Comment and subscribe if you like seeing my work.
> 
> And, if you are patient enough, you may just see that M rating tick a little higher.


	8. When This Black Sun, Revolved, Around You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frumpkin had been gone two months and Caleb, of course, feared the worst. That he had lost his familiar, his companion, his friend. It gnawed at his gut and added to the roiling cauldron of his starved stomach with the acid of anxiety. It kept him up at night, looking out the dark windows when his friend no longer brought him half dead animals or woke him with a smothering snuggle. Caleb worried that his best friend was no longer alive. 
> 
> But, he was a prince now, and words of his mentor pushed into his mind easier in these moments. 'There is no use in childish things like love, boy.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Without further ado, more story! 
> 
> Hello readers, just a quick update and a moving along of the story. I'm hoping you're all looking forward to a bit of excitement. 
> 
> Thank you to my beta and my readers who helped me push through the slough of writing while I've been feeling down. 
> 
> Warnings:  
> Emotional Abuse  
> Verbal Manipulation

Papers and notes were spread across Caleb’s desk, swaths of information laid out in patterned waves only noticeable by the man’s eyes. He had a pad of paper, plain and barren, and was wishing desperately that there was something he could concentrate on. He thinks better with busywork along with his real job. A distraction, a gentle purr. An orange tabby that would sit in his lap and let him pet and prod and feel for when he needed it.

Frumpkin had been gone two months and Caleb, of course, feared  the worst. That he had lost his familiar, his companion, his friend. It gnawed at his gut and added to the roiling cauldron of his starved stomach with the acid of anxiety. It kept him up at night, looking out the dark windows when his friend no longer brought him half dead animals or woke him with a smothering snuggle. Caleb worried that his best friend was no longer alive. 

But, he was a prince now, and words of his mentor pushed into his mind easier in these moments.  _ There is no use in childish things like love, boy _ . Caleb closed his eyes to ignore the sting at the corners of his tired eyes. He wiped away the half shed tears and looked at the calendar, ticking off another day before the festival and found himself frowning. The trip to the city was needed, however much he disliked this idea. Supplies needed, caches to renew and soldiers to prepare for. War brewing upon his shores would be no good so he must do his best to appease and gear up. 

Laughter caught him in surprise, but it was too far to be anyone near him - a quick glance outside revealed it was two of the stablehands who were talking, too far from his own ears. Caleb could see their smiles, however, the way they leaned into their conversation as they worked. He wanted that,  _ needed _ that. He has that, with a select few people. Beauregard, Nott, stablehands and workers and bakers and butchers. But it wasn’t familiar, reciprocated in a way that would develop into, well... 

Caleb turned his head as one of the stablehands leaned in to close the distance. 

That laughter had sparked an image, of the way Mollymauk had laughed, bright and jubilant and alive. It created a fire in his belly, embers of something once thought hidden. As he tapped the tip of his quill to the paper and smeared ink onto the parchment he swirled it. Patterns, ideas, thoughts. Mollymauk. The way the man smiled, how his tail had a mind of its own, the image conjured in the quiet darkness of how his lips would taste. Another peal of laughter had set Caleb’s back straight and caused the quill to skip off the page and ruin the sketch of the lilies. He almost thought it was good enough to try again but they were off kilter, hanging lopsided and petals still smeared with thoughtless movements. Caleb tried clearing his mind, shaking his head and running fingers through his hair; it wouldn’t do well to think of the tiefling in that manner. Mollymauk was not his, not even someone he could be near in that manner. 

“You still goof off, even after all of our lessons.” 

Ice encapsulated Caleb’s veins and the quill nearly snapped in two at the calm voice before him. Not giving away his surprise, the wizard looks up to the imposing, regal figure of his adopted father. 

Trent’s figure has not faltered even since the quoted ‘illness’ that drove him to separate his kingdom into three parts for his children. He stands before Caleb with a smile that would be fond if Caleb didn’t know the man. 

“Hello, my boy,” Trent begins, moving and taking his seat right across from Caleb, taking his time to tuck several graying strands of hair behind a half pointed ear. “It has been some time since I’ve seen you in person. After hearing from Eodwulf and Astrid, I thought it might be good to have a visit.” The man rests his hands together on the table, leaning forward in no discernable way but it puts Caleb on edge. 

“I hope they kept their tongue and told you the truth this time, Father.” Caleb uses only formalities, holding his own tongue. Bile and panic have begun to rise, minute after minute and he wants to run. “If I had known you would be visiting I would have set up something nice for you. Wine, a few gemstones, or a virgin.” He flinches when irritation flickers on Trent’s face, a joke too far. 

The space around Trent changes, aura wavering from kindness to cold, magic seeping into Caleb’s space. He will fight it, if only for a moment, before it breaks through any reserve, and an ichorous black hand wraps around the young man’s neck. It holds its thumb against his adam’s apple, applying just enough pressure to be felt. A warning. 

“They’ve told me you’ve developed a bit of wit and I must say I  _ am _ surprised, Caleb,” now the man stands, weaving his way around the desk. One by one the lanterns and candles that light the study flicker and fade to all but one that stands at the man’s desk. “You were my favorite, you know. The one I knew that could rise above the rest. Astrid and Eodwulf, they were mere stepping stones.” Trent spoke closer now to his face, against his cheek and directly into his ear. The spry curled hairs of his sideburns curled and withered against the acrid breath and for a scant moment Caleb could feel the elongated sharp teeth of his king press against his cheek. 

“I do not want to be proven wrong, my prince. Once my time is gone, I  _ do _ hope you are the one to claim my throne.” 

The viscous hand is gone off him and Caleb sucks a breath in as he’d held it as long as possible, melting into the seat and digging sharpened nails into the polished wood. Trent was back in his seat as if he’d never left and the relit candles felt blinding to the man’s strained vision. 

“Now, I had also heard a few tossed rumors from some city guards from further north, about cultists? It would not do well to have such silly rumors tossed about in the name of the kingdom. We hold our relationships with the dragons in  _ such _ high regard,” Trent’s eyes flicker to a corner of shifting tapestry, wind in the curtains, and Caleb waves a hand, shutting the window with a wisp of magic. Eyes no longer on him, Caleb watches Trent look through his scrawled notes and finds nothing alleviating the ugly, bubbling anger and hatred that has made a home in his chest. 

“I hope your little pocket of a kingdom is faring well in the spring, yes?” 

It is as if it were nothing, to be speaking of such trivial things. A machinery clicks and whirrs, Caleb’s addled mind able to supply the needed, necessary answers that Trent asks for. When the king finally stands and does not approach, Caleb can tell their meeting is over and the man takes in the youngling prince with a quirked smile, teeth sharp and stained. 

“Thank you for the update, my boy. If I shall need your assistance I will call upon you. But I hope you would do the same, Caleb.” 

As if only passing in the night, the king leaves, slipping out of a door into the hall, but Caleb is not a child, the taste of magic coating his tongue like dehydration. Shaking takes him, long before Nott even dares to move from the spot she was nearly caught in. He’s since reached for one of the few locked drawers in his desk, turning an invisible key with a flick of his hand and sliding it open. The bottle, fine and crystal, sloshes with an amber liquid that Caleb does not bother pouring into a matching crystal tumbler over ice. It burns the whole way down, from the lips and down his throat and lights a different, fearful fire that could catch anything in the room. 

“Caleb-”

“Hush, Nott.” He sounds clipped but so distant, dragging a hand over his face and trying desperately to gain some semblance of control. The drink helped and the amber liquid softened the ache and dulled the emotions that threatened to fall from his lips. “If he had moved and found you, he could have killed you, could have-” Flashes of horrible imagery filtered into his mind so he took another drink and half the bottle was gone. The goblin couldn’t find it within herself to stop him, shoulders dropping as she moves to find a flask of water and another bottle.

This would be a long night. 

=====

Mollymauk nearly walked away without his horse when Yasha mentioned it to him, telling her all about what had happened to him since he’d been taken. She kept her temper about her, though he could feel with the way she rumbled in thundering steps. 

“The prince saved me - can you believe that? I thought he’d be more guarded perhaps, but, oh Yasha, he’s  _ very _ handsome.” He goes on to describe Caleb to her, watching the way Yasha’s shoulders shift and she relaxes, leaning into his words. Molly talks about the strength of Caleb’s magic, the way the prince offered his place to him. Not far from the castle, Molly is off his mare and into Yasha’s arms, pulled from the mount with little tugging. 

Her arms weave around him, holding him tightly with his face and horns butting gently into her neck. 

“I am so glad you’re alive, Molly. So,  _ so _ glad.” 

Her rumbling voice settles his nerves and makes Molly melt just a little, sighing softly and burying himself against her. It feels like home, aching for a moment where the sun hit long amaranth fields and they could sit and talk for hours. He pulls from Yasha, smiling brightly.

“Come on, I want you to meet Prince Caleb.” 

The castle is quieter, drawn into the curtain of a setting sun and night activities slowing to not much more than those preparing last minute things for the morning and finishing tasks with the last vestiges of light. Molly pulls her past a few guards and through the stables and vaguely spots a set of blue robes before taking her inside. 

“Molly?” 

The voice of the mystic barely stops him, turning to find Beauregard just ahead of him, stopping before the next set of doors. Though the woman’s eyes are not on him, but on Yasha, who’s giving her a questioning glance. 

“Beau, one of the ones I’d like to see! You’ll be pleased to know I’ve found one of my best friends!” 

Yasha steps forward to stand beside Molly and offers a hand. Beau, caught between surprise and excitement, takes the hand and moves with the quick shaking of a greeting. 

“It’s well - it’s a pleasure. Yasha?-”

“Yasha-”

“Why don’t I show you around the castle?”

The taller woman looks back to her tiefling and he rolls his eyes, gesturing for Yasha to go follow. He waves his hands and she’ll look back to Beau and nod, letting the woman draw her away. With the obstacle out of the way, Molly makes his way up the stairs toward Caleb’s quarters. 

He finds Caleb, still drinking, tapping a smeared quill against the parchment. It stirs something odd in Molly’s chest to see the man not even cast a faux smile at the sight of the tiefling. 

“My prince, I have some wonderful news!” Molly tries to keep the smile on his face, though Caleb doesn’t look look at him, doesn’t meet his gaze. 

“I found my friend - someone I’d traveled with before-” 

“Molly-” 

“-she came looking for me, said she never stopped looking, I want you to meet-”

“Mollymauk!” Caleb's hand hit the desk, papers fluttering and scattering across the floor. Molly flinched and looked again to the wizards face to see red rimmed eyes and blotchy, pale skin that was dappled in freckles and flickering moonlight that almost cast Caleb’s skin like scales. “I am not in the mood for your jubilant attitude. Unless you have something of merit, I would like you to  _ leave me be _ .” 

The tiefling deflated, his tail ticking against his thigh and he looks down. Caleb's anger chilled and subdued Molly but sparked some anger. He met Caleb's gaze and frowned.

"Of course your highness, forgive me for intruding on your such important event of doing nothing." 

Molly quickly turned and left, trying to ignore the burning prickle of tears. Emotions flooded the tiefling and he found himself huddled in the open garden close to the courtyard, pouting at the roses bathed in the shade of the setting sun.

A noise caught his attention,looking over to spot a fluffy ginger cat coming out of some of the mulberry bushes. It looked toward Molly, thick tail curled in curiosity and trotting toward him.

"Well hello there little love," Molly purred out as he let his hand hang, offering the tabby to nuzzle at it. It scented his fingers, rubbing whiskers against against his taloned nails. "I hope you're not lost, Caleb might wind up getting angry at you too." The cat looked upon him with wide bright green eyes and Molly pet its head.

"He's never really like that, is he? I don't doubt that what he does is hard but it's not fair." The cat was listening, though its head turned toward the bush it came from. Four little forms came from the bush, orange and black kittens mewling and searching. Molly's newfound companion abandoned him and moved to them, standing close and letting the kittens crawl over it. Then it settled and rolled, letting the kittens nurse.

"You've got plenty to deal with, don't you little mama." Molly moves over and settles near her and the kits, wiping his eyes again. The cat meowed at him and one of the kittens gave a weak hiss.

"Mollymauk?" 

The voice of Caleb made him tuck a little lower toward the ground, cursing his quick nesting heart.

"The Tanner said you've gone this way," the prince sighed. " I only wish to apologize." 

As Caleb rounded a corner Molly caught sight of him in the last bits of light the setting sun painted and cast deep shadows over the rest of the courtyard. Many things knock the breath from Mollymauk as he takes in the sight of this human illuminated in such a light; the way Caleb's cheekbones caught gold, and the blue eyes, once cornflower, became molten and worried. Caleb's clothes were mussed, jacket left open and the cotton undershirt split to reveal there were freckles that matched across the bridge of his nose and down his neck. The last thing Molly saw before going back to his face was a fine golden chain and a familiar symbol of a god the tiefling once sang about. 

"There you are Molly," Caleb's eyes crinkled in a way that he could be smiling but Molly was only looking into his eyes. "I did not wish to search the whole castle for you." There was a pause in the prince's voice but Caleb's eyes had drifted from the tiefling down to the orange cat nursing her young.

"Frumpkin?"

Molly watched the face of the prince change, meshing between several different distinct emotions before settling onto something the tiefling hadn’t seen on Caleb before. Relief flooded the man’s face, softening his features in a way that made him look almost a decade younger. The distance between them closed and he dropped to his knees to reach out and pet the orange beast with a shaking hand. 

“I thought I lost you.” 

The cat - Frumpkin, now that Molly knows the name - leans her head against the hand and makes contact. Caleb runs his fingers over the cat and to the new squirming additions that regard him with more hissing and huffing. Caleb’s face crosses over into wonder as he regards the kits, a smile on his face as he lets his fingers dangle down near them to hiss and snuff at him. 

“Mollymauk, I did not mean to be so upset around you, to be so harsh. You did not deserve my anger and I wished to apologise.” Molly finds the prince’s face and there are tears, happy with a smile and threads of emotions that will sabotage everything the tiefling wants to work for. 

Molly loves that smile. 

“Thank you for finding my best friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of feelings and swirling emotions in this little chapter~! 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed it, and I can't wait for the next instillation.


	9. I Will Be Sure To Shake The Mountains While We Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A caravan has begun to amass around them, wagons and carts filled with goods and people; goats and cows with leashes of rope tied together in a tiny herd. Then Molly sees Caleb upon his horse, dark gelding with armor upon its shoulders and a braided breastplate denoted in the rich colors of the country. Many of the common folk take a knee or turn their wrist against their chest in their salute but Molly can not take his eyes off the wizard. 
> 
> It’s Yasha’s words that rouse him from staring and he’ll follow her as she guides him to Water Closet who’s been saddled up properly with bags and even a bedroll. 
> 
> “Look at you pretty thing. Ready for the capital?” The horse nudges the hand he presses to her nose before mounting up, patting her neck. 
> 
> “To the capital!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome friends! 
> 
> Obviously a few notes before we start this chapter; note the uptick in the rating. Yes, we've moved to Explicit. There will contain smut within this fic! Especially in this chapter! This chapter begins with smut! 
> 
> If you don't want to read it this chapter in fact can be skipped - the important section of this fic will be repeated in chapter 10 for those who aren't wanting to read the smut but want the content and plot. I'm doing this for those who want romance and action and adventure but aren't fond of the smutty bits. If you do wanna read through this chapter and skip the Explicits, ctrl + f "As he joins the morning crowd" and you'll be transported to the continuing story. 
> 
> Also, due to my schedule tightening at work and Real Life Commitments (gross, I know), I'll be changing this to a bi-weekly posting; it'll be easier on me because I have other projects I'm working on and I do not want to overload myself and I hope you all understand! 
> 
> That being said; Warnings For the Chapter.  
> Smut [anything in italics before the break is smut at the beginning of the chapter]  
> Semi-Public sex  
> Mollymauk is a transman and uses feminine coded words for his genitals.

_ Caleb pushes Mollymauk against the wagon and their kisses bite and sting - teeth on soft lips and any trickle of blood licked away on the next pass of tongue. Molly moans when the wizard slides his hands down his chest. Those hands that burned, smelling of ash and smoke and of the wall of fire that saved them, cut enemies in half and turned the tide of battle. _

_ "Under the shirt, love, I need your hands on me." _

_ The rough chuckle that burns against the tiefling’s skin has Molly's knees wobbling, gripping that dirty coat as he pushes against the knee between his thighs. When Caleb's soot covered hands touch him, slick against sweating skin, it smears beautifully and marrs purple skin black. But then Molly is being touched, gasping as Caleb presses his thumb against a pebbled nipple and applies just enough pressure to leave another moan and push against the knee. _

_ "Look at you," Caleb's lips have yet to leave more than an inch of space between himself and Molly's skin. Kisses that shine with spittle and blood, marking over peacock feathers and scar tissue to find their home and make a true mark. Another pitiful sound from Molly as Caleb tugs, pulling open the tiefling’s shirt, just enough to expose his chest and give better access to the man. "You look ready to drop on to those pretty knees and suck my cock. Would you do that for me, Mollymauk?" Caleb lets the accent thicken only within the other man's name to make it pop. He's taken Molly's hand from his coat, bringing it around to show the tiefling just how he feels about the sounds he's been making. _

_ Molly falls when Caleb moves the leg from between his thighs. The mud smears and soaks into his patterned trousers, but it is nothing against the grime of weeks of travel and fighting those bandits. He pushes his head against Caleb's hips, purring when a dirty hand threads through missed curls and pulls. The spark of pain jitters down Molly's spine and his tail thrashes and curls tight. _

_ "I didn't even have to ask, you are being very good, Mollymauk." This is new, it is hot and fast but desire overrides anxiety. None of this could have happened if not for Molly alerting the party, Molly using his own blood to protect them. Caleb tilted the tiefling's head, allowing him to nuzzle against the tented fabric. _

_ "How badly do you want my cock, Molly? Tell me." _

_ It takes too much energy to articulate words for Molly, but he shifts, spreading his thighs to alleviate the ache and slick between them sitting back. Opening his mouth, Molly sticks out his tongue and lets Caleb see the plush depths and sharp canines. _

_ "I want you to use me," Molly says, finding enough energy for a begging lit to the words. "Grab my horns and fuck my throat." _

_ Caleb is stunned, pure desire threading deeper into his being and wiping away any anxiety over this. He wants Molly and Molly feels the same way about him. It takes not a moment to tug the ties open, freeing his cock. _

_ "Come take your prize, Mollymauk." _

_ Scant a moment passes before Molly moves forward, pressing kitten licks against the darkened head and exploring the length of Caleb. The human lets a few huffing breaths out, fingers threading again and again in Molly's hair as he tries to distract himself from thrusting into the man's mouth. Fingers brush the base of horns and there's a moan, glorious and shockingly pleasureful around Caleb's cock. A fist clenches against the base then and he exhales too fast, almost lightheaded. _

_ "Did they feel good, Mollymauk? Would you like me to hold your horns?" Oh, Caleb would do more if Molly only asked. He's almost disappointed when Molly pulls away but his eyes widen as he watches the tiefling with spittle and precum stained lips reach up to remove some horn jewelry. It gets pocketed and when Molly looks up Caleb can feel those eyes peer into his. _

_ "Hold hard, hold fast. Three slaps of my tail and you pull away. Understand?" _

_ The words wind him, punching up and throwing so much pleasure his head swims as the last of his blood surges to his cock. All Caleb can do is nod before Molly is back upon him. Dutifully, Caleb takes both hands to thread through hair and take Molly’s horns in hand. _

_ Once again there are gentle, curious licks across Caleb's length as Molly explores the tender flesh. Watching through thick lashes, Caleb gently pulls at Molly's horns and guiding him further over his cock. Molly is beautiful, opening his mouth and taking every inch that Caleb eases inside that overly hot mouth. _

_ "You are so beautiful, Mollymauk, so beautiful and sexy. I could fuck your mouth for hours, days. Have you warm my cock while I work, while I'm in meetings." A rhythm begins. Caleb will draw Molly to the head and back down again, every time he draws the tiefling back in, it's a little deeper, a little more cock. He  suddenly feels Molly swallowing and nearly buckles, groaning as he realizes just how deep he's in Molly. _

_ "I bet you'd love it if I just fucked you to the hilt, cock buried in your throat," Caleb makes the mistake of looking down; Molly touching himself, ties on those dirty trousers open, the slick sounds of fingers between thighs and drool dribbling down Molly's chin. He bucks on instinct and there's a sound that rocks the wizard, a muffled moan as the tiefling bobs his head for more. _

_ Caleb's fingers clench, taking hold of Mollys curled horns and it feels almost right how pliant the man becomes. When he moves so does Molly, the tiefling flattening his tongue and let the humans do what he wants. In a mind clouded in lust all Caleb can think of is the wet heat, the desire, and he thrusts into Molly. _

_ Fingers tangle once again into Caleb's dingy trousers, Molly holding himself upright as Caleb fucks his throat. It's all he can do save for letting go, tail thrashing and trying to find some sort of rhythm to follow. _

_ The thread is broken as Caleb shoves Molly away and though he doesn't cough or gag the next noise is a whine, and words. _

_ "Caleb-" _

_ "Get up, Mollymauk." The depth of Caleb's voice has the tiefling trembling, following what he's being asked. _

_ The moment Molly is standing Caleb takes him, pulls him into another harsh kiss that he responds to easily. Teeth, lips, tongue meeting in kind. Caleb's hands are on Molly's waist and the tiefling gives no protest when the human begins to tug and pull, rolling down his tight patterned trousers. Then he's shoved, the kiss broken, and he’s pushed flush against the cart. Molly takes hold against the wood and gasps as Caleb displays his attentions. _

_ Caleb takes his time to explore, letting Molly's tail wrap around his arm as a hand creeps between the man's thighs. _

_ "You're going to ruin yourself first on my fingers," Caleb breathes the words into Molly's shoulder as two fingers press, coax and sink in slowly. "Then on my cock. You can not cum unless you beg for it. Understand?" The fingers curl and Molly keens. _

_ "Understand?" The word is uttered again and Molly nods. _

_ "Yes." _

_ Caleb thrusts his fingers into the heat and Molly gasps, infernal flickering on his lips but he muffles them. The hand that cut through a swath of men, burned in fire and blood, is inside him now, giving him pleasure. Heat inside and out that makes Molly tremble, only washed away when he feels Caleb's other hand slide against his thigh, creeping closer. _

_ "You are so wet for me, Mollymauk. Was this from my cock down your throat?" Caleb is so close, body pressed into his side and cock to his hip. He could have that inside him, if he was good. He'd be good for Caleb, he would. A spark of intense pleasure stops Molly's entire world, a brush of a finger against the golden stud and a bundle of nerves. _

_ "It still amazes me, your little clit piercing. A devil like yourself, it probably got you off didn't it?" Caleb hisses against his ear, rubbing his clit and lighting the last pyre. _

_ Molly sobs his pleasure. _

  


======

Sheets stuck to skin, breath caught as shaken from a dream Mollymauk shoots up and throws himself from the bed. The cold stone floor shocks him further awake to several sore sensations, groaning as he shifts to let the rest of his body hit the floor and lay there. 

“This is where I die.” 

Each breath he took while on the floor cooled him off but the stone was uncomfortable, matching the slick between his thighs. He scrubbed a hand over his face and finally came up, grabbing a cloth from his dresser and taking it to his body, wiping away sweat and ignoring the ache that crept higher before tossing the rag and dressing for the day. The sun has inched its way into his room, the warmth of summer having reached so far south now. 

As he joins the morning crowd in the dining hall, Molly doesn’t spot the prince, but Caleb is most likely busy, preparing the last pieces of the journey to the capital, so he’s left with Beau and Nott who are talking with Yasha and two new people. There’s the half-orc who looks like he’s staring off into space and the vibrant blue tiefling, who quickly catches his eye. 

“You’re just as gorgeous in person as what Yasha told me!” 

The tiefling has Molly in his arms quicker than he can think, crushing his face and horns into her bosom ,though Molly doesn’t mind as she brings him back up to her face. Her violet eyes sparkle with mischief and silver, grinning wide at him.

“My name is Jester and it is very,  _ very _ nice to meet you! You are Mollymauk, right?” She pulls her hands from his face and he rubs his cheeks, though Jester’s smile is infectious, nodding with her. 

“Molly, darling, call me Molly. The one and only and in all honesty it is so, so nice to meet someone so beautiful and colorful as I am!” He cups her face and they nuzzle their faces together immediately. She’s colder than him by several degrees and it shocks him, making him pull back. Jester’s smile is knowing, teasing almost, as if there’s a secret in her gaze. 

“Come on, come eat with us! Beau was just telling us about the capital and what we’re gonna be doing there.” 

He’s tugged back to join Jester at the table when the half-orc finally looks his way. The man is handsome though a bit rugged across the jaw where his stubble casts a deeper shadow to cut his face in dark angles. 

“This is Fjord, he’s Yasha’s knight!” 

Molly does a double-take back to Jester, spotting Yasha beside her covering her mouth as a huffing noise comes across the table. 

“I’m not  _ her  _ knight,” Fjord starts to say as he brings a tankard up to his mouth. “It isn’t even a proper contract.” Though when Molly looks to Yasha, her face betrays a bit of glare that silences the man to drinking and returning to his food. Molly begins to get up to go for food when a plate is set before him and he looks up to see Caleb at his side, taking a chair next to him. He’ll ignore his racing heart to smile at the wizard and quirk a brow.

“You brought me food?” 

Caleb gives Molly a smile that makes his tail curl, swishing and coming in contact with another appendage, Jester giggling as their tails twine together. Her tail curls against his, making quick work to relax the tiefling, and it helps smooth the sharp tug on his heart. The plate is filled with a mix of leftovers from the night before and sliced of braised lamb and mint jelly against a jam and soft cheese that easily spreads against bread. 

“It is only the least I could do since you’ve brought my friend back to me.” 

“Your cat?” 

There’s a handwave, Caleb almost pouting and Molly quells his desire to call the prince cute - this wasn’t something to fawn over.

“Frumpkin is my familiar, as wizards might have,” Caleb says then and there’s a warmth in his eyes Molly wants to get lost in. “I have had him since he was just a little kitten that fit in the palm of my hand. He was with me when I became crowned prince, and moved with me when I came to take residence here.” 

Molly nods, following along and tilting his head up.

“But Frumpkin’s a girl.” 

Caleb doesn’t sputter but a flush of warmth crosses his cheeks. 

“To be honest, I never really checked.” 

A snort bubbles from Molly’s mouth and he quickly covers it as Caleb again sports something close to a pout, but he quickly schools his features back into something neutral. Molly isn’t alone in the laughter, Jester’s giggling and Beau’s snort following suit. 

“Moving along,” Caleb clears his throat and leans back to rest against the back of the chair, relaxing his shoulders. “I have finally finished our preparations within the capital. We shall stay there approximately four days between the meetings I shall be in and corresponding in.” There’s a look the man gives Beau and she groans. 

“I need to check in with the Cobalt Soul anyway,” she sets down her tankard and gently pushes the drink away. “There’s plenty for us to do, it seems.” 

Discussion moves into the topics of the capital though Molly is mostly focused on his food, ignoring the warmth of Caleb near him and instead on the cool feel of Jester as she listens on their conversations. Her plate is full of sweets - fruit, pastries and a soft cream she dunks her pastries into, easily licking away stray cream. 

“So if Mr. Caleb is the prince, why doesn’t he lives in the capital?” She looks to Molly for this and he shrugs before looking to the ginger and repeating the question. 

“Why  _ don’t  _ you live in the capital?” 

Caleb turns to look at both tieflings and their inquisitive glances and sighs, smoothing a hand over one of his arms. 

“I am...not fond of too many people, and the capital is very large. Being in a landlocked city also never appealed to me.” There’s a nod from Jester, who quickly goes into talking about the city she grew up in that butted right against the cliffs and the sea and Molly finds himself smiling, letting himself lull in the conversation. They were able to lay out plans and the easiest way to travel into the capital after their meal. 

Jester remained tucked against Molly, enjoying his warmth while her cool skin kept him from overheating, and though there was much thought tucked away in the purple tiefling’s mind about her he knew better than to ask a lady her secrets in a public space. Instead he simply relaxed and chimed in when needed. He caught Yasha’s eyes a few times, watching her sit close to Beauregard and subtly wink at him once, happy to have her back again. 

They set off soon after clearing their plates, separating to pack a bag and prepare for their departure. Molly made sure to send a note off to Wursh to let the blacksmith know he would return soon to begin working and picked his way back to the meeting spot designated right outside of the castle. He found Yasha, Jester and Fjord already waiting; Jester on horseback as she compliments and braids the mare’s thick hair, which doesn't seem to mind her. He moves and pushes himself into Yasha’s embrace and she moves to accommodate, slipping back into conversation with Fjord. 

“Can you tell me anything about Dikter? I know we passed around it while coming down here,” she’s threading her fingers through Molly’s hair and oh he relaxes as her rumbling voice makes him drowsy. 

“Dikter’s like most larger cities in Valesenir. Less pronounced with the royalty and religion aspect but there’s doses of it here an’ there.” Fjord gives a noncommittal handwave at that and Yasha snorts. The half-orc talks about the trade and since the city is on a river there’s a lot of boat traffic that leads down to the coast. Molly listens though he’s close to dozing against Yasha until she moves, righting the tiefling even though he gives a little whine. 

A caravan has begun to amass around them, wagons and carts filled with goods and people; goats and cows with leashes of rope tied together in a tiny herd. Then Molly sees Caleb upon his horse, dark gelding with armor upon its shoulders and a braided breastplate denoted in the rich colors of the country. Many of the common folk take a knee or turn their wrist against their chest in their salute but Molly can not take his eyes off the wizard. 

It’s Yasha’s words that rouse him from staring and he’ll follow her as she guides him to Water Closet who’s been saddled up properly with bags and even a bedroll. 

“Look at you pretty thing. Ready for the capital?” The horse nudges the hand he presses to her nose before mounting up, patting her neck. 

“To the capital!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you all excited for the group to go into the capital! It's wonderful to see the Nein together even if they're all of different sorts and different people. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoy the fic, it gives me the confidence to write more. 
> 
> I wanted to thank my beta and readers down here as there was a huge information dump within the opening notes and I didn't want to overload people; my beta is amazing and she not only gives me insight for the fic and its plot but also helps with the chapter titles! She's amazing and wonderful. Thank you love! 
> 
> Next chapter will be posted in two weeks, so look around about the 12th! See you soon!

**Author's Note:**

> I wanna thank you for reading! I'll try to post between Wednesday or Thursday depending on my schedule with maybe a week or so in between. 
> 
> If you wanna hear more about the bard and the lord, stay tuned!


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